[Normalization of bladder emptying in patients on clean intermittent catheterization]

CIC is an established treatment for various functional disturbances of the lower urinary tract (UT). Termination of CIC due to successful restoration of normal or near-normal spontaneous bladder emptying has been reported in individual cases but there have been no reports of it in larger series. In the present study, data for 1,702 patients on CIC were obtained with the help of an organised system of registration and follow-up of these patients, developed by Astra Tech AS, Norway. CIC could be terminated because of the restoration of satisfactory spontaneous bladder emptying in 13.2 per cent of the series as whole (n = 1702). The rate of improved bladder emptying was significantly higher among patients with lower UT lesions and bladder dysfunction of unknown aetiology than among patients with upper UT lesions and miscellaneous diagnoses (18.4 vs. 8.8 per cent, p < 0.001). The improvement almost always occurred during the first year, and was more common among women than among men (17.2 vs. 9.5 per cent). There was no difference in the frequency of catheterisation episodes between the group able to end treatment owing to normalisation of spontaneous bladder emptying and the group still on CIC. A possible explanation of why CIC results in satisfactory spontaneous bladder emptying is that the treatment reduces over-distension of the bladder wall.