Management of neurogenic bladder in infancy and childhood

Sixty-two patients, age twelve years and under, were treated for incontinence due to neurogenic bladder secondary to spina bifida (58) or trauma (4) with a follow-up period of three to thirty-two months (mean, ten months). In early life, patients were managed with the Credé maneuver (18 patients). Older children were managed with intermittent clean catheterization (44 patients) with or without pharmacologic agents. Continence was achieved with intermittent clean catheterization in 77 per cent, thus enabling these children to be more acceptable to their peers and in many cases attend schools from which they had previously been excluded because of urinary incontinence. With the Credé maneuver, renal deterioration was noted in 11 per cent on follow-up IVP, and in 2 per cent of the patients on intermittent clean catheterization. Recurrent asymptomatic bacteriuria occurred in 33 per cent of those with the Credé maneuver and in 55 per cent of the patients using intermittent clean catheterization. The use of antibiotic bladder irrigations reduced this incidence to 5 per cent. All patients with renal deterioration except one responded to intermittent clean catheterization; this patient was treated with cutaneous vesicostomy. Urodynamic assessment was performed in 15 patients, and this diagnostic tool assisted in the therapeutic management of these children.