Overactive bladder symptoms in patients undergoing rigid and flexible cystoscopy

Area of Science:

• Urology
• Patient Outcomes

Background:

• Overactive bladder (OAB) is a common condition characterized by urinary urgency.
• Diagnostic cystoscopy is a procedure used to examine the bladder.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the prevalence and changes in overactive bladder symptoms among patients undergoing diagnostic cystoscopy.
• To assess the impact of cystoscopy on de novo OAB development and pre-existing OAB symptom severity.

Main Methods:

• A prospective, multi-center study involving 450 adults undergoing diagnostic cystoscopy.
• OAB symptoms were assessed using the OAB Screening Awareness Tool (OAB-V8) before and at multiple time points after cystoscopy.
• Patients were categorized as OAB-negative (<8) or OAB-positive (≥8) based on their sum-scores.

Main Results:

• Nearly half of patients (44.7%) screened positive for OAB before cystoscopy.
• De novo OAB developed in 16.8% of initially negative patients, decreasing to 8.1% by day 7.
• Patients with pre-existing OAB showed a significant decline in symptoms post-cystoscopy.
• Flexible cystoscopy demonstrated superiority over rigid scopes in improving specific OAB symptom subdomains.

Conclusions:

• Overactive bladder symptoms are frequently observed in patients before and can be triggered by diagnostic cystoscopy.
• While cystoscopy can induce de novo OAB symptoms, it may also lead to an improvement in pre-existing OAB.
• Flexible cystoscopy appears to be more effective than rigid cystoscopy in managing certain OAB symptom aspects.