Comparison of symptom characteristics of indwelling ureteral catheters

The signs and symptoms produced by 4 different types of 7F double pigtail catheters, including Cook polyurethane pigtail stent, Surgitek Silitek Uropass, Cook C-Flex and Van-Tec Soft stent, were analyzed prospectively. The stents were placed in 45 men and 28 women ranging in age from 23 to 72 years old. A total of 44 catheters had a suture attached to the bladder end of the catheter, which exited from the urethral meatus to facilitate removal. The remaining 29 catheters had no suture attached. Symptoms were evaluated at 2 and 6 days after insertion and 1 week following removal of the catheter, and included urinary frequency, nocturia, hematuria, flank pain, suprapubic pain, dysuria and pain on removal of the catheter. Frequency and nocturia were evaluated in minutes, pain was graded on a subjective scale of 0 (no pain) to 10 (severe pain), and dysuria and hematuria were assessed qualitatively. There were no significant differences among the 4 types of catheters in terms of frequency, nocturia, hematuria, flank pain, suprapubic pain and dysuria. In addition, there was no significant difference in urinary symptoms between catheters with and without a suture at either 2 or 6 days after insertion nor was there any difference in pain on removal of catheters with (mean 3.9) and without (mean 5.0) suture. We found that catheter composition and use of suture to facilitate removal did not significantly affect patient morbidity.