Coecocystoplasty: an evaluation of operative results

Coecocystoplasty for substituting or augmenting the bladder is a relatively common operation in the United States, but not in Scandinavia. In order to focus the attention on this voiding-preserving operation we evaluated the late postoperative results of 8 patients. Median follow-up was 5 years. Seven of the patients had symptoms from a contracted bladder and 1 patient with epispadias was undiverted from a ureteroileocutaneostomy. There were some early postoperative complications. Two patients had a revision of the coecocystoplasty, 1 patient ended up with a ureteroileocutaneostomy and 1 patient needed a nephrectomy because of a perirenal abscess. The patient with epispadias later had an artificial urinary sphincter because of persisting incontinence. At follow-up time all patients found that they had a better life than prior to operation since the invalidating symptoms from the contracted bladder had disappeared. One patient with residual urine had chronic urinary tract infection. All patients were continent at daytime, 3 patients had nocturnal incontinence. Urodynamic studies showed no infravesical obstruction and bladder capacity between 75 and 380 ml H2O. Three patients had decreased renal function. Based on our limited material we conclude that coecocystoplasty is a reasonable, though not unproblematic, treatment in patients with severe symptoms from a small contracted bladder and a therapeutical alternative in patients with a previously defunctionalised bladder and that this method should always be taken into consideration before a urinary diversion.