A comparative study of water perfusion catheters and microtip transducer catheters for urethral pressure measurements

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the maximum urethral closure pressure (MUCP) measures with two different techniques: water perfused catheter and microtip transducer catheters with respect to reproducibility and comparability for urethral pressure measurements. Eighteen women with stress urinary incontinence had repeat static urethral pressure profilometry on a different day using a dual microtip transducer and water perfused catheter (Brown and Wickham). The investigators were blinded to the results of the other. The microtip measurements were taken in the 45°upright sitting position with the patient at rest at a bladder capacity of 250 ml using an 8 Fr Gaeltec® double microtip transducer withdrawn at 1 mm/s, and the transducer was orientated in the three o'clock position. Three different measures were taken for each patient. Three water perfusion measurements were performed with the patient at rest in the 45°upright position at a bladder capacity of 250 ml using an 8 Fr BARD dual lumen catheter withdrawn at 1 mm/s. The mean water perfusion MUCP measure was 26.1 cm H 2 0, significantly lower than the mean microtip measure of 35.7 cm H 2 0. The correlation coefficient comparing each water perfusion measurement with the other water perfusion measures in the same patient was excellent, at 0.95 (p=0.01). Correlation coefficient comparing each microtip measure with the other microtip measure in the same patient was also good, ranging from 0.70 to 0.80. This study confirms that both water perfusion catheters and microtip transducers have excellent or very good reproducibility with an acceptable intraindividual variation for both methods.

Conversion of urodynamic pressures measured simultaneously by air-charged and water-filled catheter systems

“…Only a few studies have compared the response of different catheter‐based manometer technologies to pressure signals during urodynamics . Standardized pressure values for diagnosis based on urodynamic testing were developed using WFCs .…”

Differences between water‐filled and air‐charged urodynamic catheters for determining the urethral pressure profile in neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction patients

“…20 Zehnder et al 12 noted this limitation and conducted randomized trials, reporting good reliability of both methods for the MUCP and FUL, and the mean values of the ACCs were significantly higher than the microtransducers because approximately one-half of the registered patients had a history of pelvic organ prolapse. In comparing WFCs and microtransducers, Wang and Chen 21 reported that values of WFCs were on average 24.5 cmH 2 O higher, while Kuhn et al 22 reported an average of 10 cmH 2 O higher; differences in catheter extraction speed or catheter size between the two studies likely accounted for the varied results. As comparisons were made against microtransducers, there were no direct comparisons between WFCs and ACCs, so we directly compared the differences between the two catheter types.…”

Influence of the urethral pressure transducer in measuring Valsalva leak point pressure in women undergoing multichannel urodynamic testing

“…Kuhn et al demonstrated the effect of catheter type comparing the maximum urethral closure pressure (MUCP) with water perfusion catheters and microtip transducer catheters. They found that the mean MUCP was significantly lower for the water perfusion catheter compared with the microtip transducer catheter . Awada et al showed that air‐charged catheters significantly underestimated the peak pressures of rapidly changing pressures, such as during coughs, compared with those measured by water‐filled catheters.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that different catheters and transducers used during urodynamics can change the values of measurements taken during the study. [7][8][9][15][16][17] Kuhn et al demonstrated the effect of catheter type comparing the maximum urethral closure pressure (MUCP) with water perfusion catheters and microtip transducer catheters. They found that the mean MUCP was significantly lower for the water perfusion catheter compared with the microtip transducer catheter.…”