The diagnostic value of intravenous pyelography in infravesical obstruction in males

Intravenous pyelographies from 104 consecutive patients admitted for infravesical obstruction were studied with special reference to pathology of the upper urinary tract and the bladder, the size of the prostate and the bladder emptying. The incidental findings in the upper urinary tract did not influence the treatment of the infravesical obstruction. Furthermore the radiographic assessment of prostatic size, bladder trabeculation, bladder emptying, bladder stones and prostatic cancer was very uncertain. Thus intravenous pyelography in our opinion should not be performed as a routine procedure in patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy, but only on clinical suspicion of upper urinary tract pathology.