[Studies on the urophonography (3)--Clinical investigation on prostatic cancer]

Recently we have developed an entirely new method of sonic detection of lower urinary tract disorders during micturition. This procedure was designated as "urophonography" and its recording as "urophonogram". Sixteen patients with prostatic cancer before and three months after anti-androgenic therapy and ten healthy male volunteers underwent urophonography. The urophonograms were classified into four types. Type 1 was characterized by its diamond shape, while Type 2 was characterized by its random sound spikes. Type 3 was a mixture of Types 1 and 2. Type 4 had few sound spikes. Analysis of these urophonograms also revealed that the frequencies of these urethral sounds belonged to the range from 0.4 to 1.5 KHz. The amplitude (power) of the sounds was in the range of 40-60 dB. Healthy volunteers belonged to Type 4. Prostatic cancer patients belonged to Types 1, 2 and 3 at 18.8, 68.8, nad 12.4%, respectively. After the treatment the percentages of Types 1, 2, 3, and 4 changed to 18.8, 50.0, 0, and 31.2%, respectively. Comparison of uroflowmetric parameters with urophonograms showed that Type 2 patients showed a lesser degree of micturition disturbances, evidenced by these parameters. It was considered that urophonograms were useful as urodynamic investigation.