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Updated: May 2, 2026

Probe-based Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy of the Urinary Tract: The Technique
Published on: January 10, 2013
Assessment of local structural disorders of the bladder wall in partial bladder outlet obstruction using polarized
Sanaz Alali1, Karen J Aitken2, Annette Schröder2
1University of Toronto, Division of Biophysics and Bioimaging, Ontario Cancer Institute/University Health Network and Department of Medical Biophysics, 610 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9 Canada.
Abstract:
Partial bladder outlet obstruction causes prominent morphological changes in the bladder wall, which leads to bladder dysfunction. In this paper, we demonstrate that polarized light imaging can be used to identify the location of obstruction induced structural changes that other imaging modalities fail to detect. We induced 2-week and 6-week partial outlet obstruction in rats, harvested obstructed bladders, then measured their retardances while distended to high pressures and compared them to controls. Our results show that the retardance of the central part of the ventral side (above the ureters) closer to the urethra can be used as a potential metric of the distending bladder obstruction.
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