Urodynamic examinations carried out on 45 patients with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and 17 women without a history of incontinence using simultaneous microtransducer urethrocystometry were examined in order to develop an objective indicator of the severity of the condition. Five urethral pressure profiles (UPP) with stress were recorded, maintaining a constant coughing strength as seen in the bladder pressure rises. The coughing strength was increased stepwise for successive profiles. Zero urethral closure pressure, indicating genuine SUI, appeared with bladder pressure rises of less than 50, 75 and 100 mm Hg and of 100 mm Hg or more in 7, 27, 45 and 67% of the 45 symptomatic patients, respectively. 33% had a positive closure pressure in every UPP. 2 women without symptomatic incontinence had negative urethral closure pressures. The lowest bladder pressure rise needed for zero urethral closure pressure showed a significant negative correlation with the clinical grade of SUI and the degrees of social restriction experienced. We suggest that SUI can be classified urodynamically into minimal (lowest bladder pressure rise producing zero urethral closure pressure 100 mm Hg or more), mild (75–99 mm Hg), moderate (50–74 mm Hg) and severe forms (less than 50 mm Hg).

The five-year survival and the complication rate were evaluated in 307 patients with endometrial carcinoma treated from 1966 to 1977. The distribution of the patients into clinical stages I, II, III and IV was 68.7, 20.8, 6.5 and 3.9%, respectively. In stage I 87.2% and in stage II 67.2% of the patients were operated on. All patients received oral medroxyprogesterone acetate for two years, and all patients with stage I or II disease were also irradiated, mostly intracavitary before operation. The crude 5-year survival in the total material was 72.0%, and for clinical stages I, II, III and IV 83.8, 54.7, 40.0 and 8.3%, respectively. 167 patients in stage I received intracavitary irradiation, 86 using the Heyman packing method and 81 using the Cathetron after-loading technique. The corresponding figures for 54 patients in stage II were 38 and 16. In clinical stage I the crude (83.9% and 84.2%, respectively) and corrected (92.9 and 88.9%, respectively) 5-year survivals were similar in the Heyman and Cathetron groups. In stage II better results were obtained using the Cathetron technique (crude 75.0 vs. 42.1%) but in the corrected material, excluding the unoperated cases, there was no significant difference (81.3 vs. 74.4%, respectively). Serious late complications requiring surgical correction were less common in the Cathetron group (2.9% vs. 11.1%; p less than 0.05). The intracavitary irradiation of endometrial carcinoma can thus be well accomplished by remote afterloading technique.