Uroflowmetry in elderly men

✍ Scribed by K. M. -E. Jensen

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 345 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0724-4983
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00182661

✦ Synopsis

In the evaluation of lower-urinary-tract symptoms, uroflowmetry has played a major role for decades due to its noninvasiveness and simplicity to perform. However, several pitfalls have to be taken into account as mentioned in this review. They include artifacts, circadian changes, observer variation, minimal volume, association with infravesical obstruction, relevant variables, reference values, and clinical applicability. Thus, uroflow should be interpreted with proper caution.

For almost a century the evaluation of lower-urinary-tract symptoms (LUTS, here to fore inappropriately called "prostatism" [2]) has been linked to some variant of urinary flow-rate measurement. Being available almost universally and easy to perform, uroflowmetry is probably the most used and misused test in urology today. For a proper definition of its indications in bladder-outlet obstruction , some aspects should be considered. These include artifacts, reproducibility, circadian changes, observer variation, association with volume and outlet obstruction, relevant variables, reference values, and clinical relevance in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).