Bladder perforation secondary to clean intermittent catheterization

Clean intermittent catheterization has been an effective treatment for the management of patients with a neurogenic bladder during the last 15 years. Reported complication rates have been low and the majority of these problems have been minor. While significant problems are seen only rarely during clean intermittent catheterization, we recently diagnosed 2 potential life-threatening complications: bladder perforation and bladder necrosis. We present our experience with these major problems associated with routine clean intermittent catheterization.