The Value of Urodynamics in an Academic Specialty Referral Practice

To describe and evaluate the use of urodynamics (UDS) studies for all indications in an academic specialty referral urology practice.

This is a prospective questionnaire-based study wherein clinicians completed a pre- and post-UDS questionnaire on each UDS that they ordered for all clinical indications between May 2013 and August 2014. Questions pertained to patient demographics and history, the clinical indication for the UDS, the clinician's pre- and post-UDS clinical impressions, and changes in post-UDS management plans. Pre- and post-UDS diagnoses were compared using the McNemar test.

Clinicians evaluated a total of 285 UDS studies during the study period. The average age of study participants was 56.0 (±16.4) years, 59.5% were female, and 29.3% had a neurologic diagnosis. The most common indication for performing UDS was to discern the predominant type of urinary incontinence (stress vs urgency) in patients with mixed incontinence symptoms (38.5%) and to assess the safety of the bladder during filling (38.2%). UDS statistically significantly changed the ordering clinician's clinical impression of the patient's lower urinary tract diagnosis for stress urinary incontinence and for urgency and urgency urinary incontinence (both had P values of <.05). Fluoroscopy was found to be helpful in 29.5% of urodynamic studies, and clinicians reported that UDS changed their treatment plans in 42.5% of the studies, most commonly pertaining to changes related to surgery (35.0%).

Overall, UDS was a clinically useful tool that altered the clinical impression and treatment plan in a large percentage of carefully selected patients.