Prostatodynia: Characteristics of Uroflowmetries

Abstract

Purpose: Prostatodynia (PD) is a kind of syndrome by many causes and many patients with PD are refractory to treatments of prostatitis. Considering a large part of complaints of PD patients are involving voiding symptoms, screening for voiding difficulty in patients with PD using uroflowmetry can be useful for selecting the following diagnostic method and choice of treatment. But characteristics of uroflowmetries in PD patients are not clarified. In this study, we analyzed data and types of curves from uroflowmetries in patients with PD to clarify and evaluate the characteristics of their voiding patterns. Materials and Methods: Patients (n=48) and 11 healthy men under age 40 were selected. All the patients and controls underwent uroflowmetries. According to 5 types of uroflow curves by Jorgensen et al, all the uroflow curves were classified, and maximum flow rate (Qmax; ml/sec) and average flow rate (Qave; ml/sec) were compared. Results: Qmax (15.9 ml/sec) and Qave (9.0 ml/sec) in PD patients were all lower than those (24.5 ml/sec, 15.5 ml/sec) in controls (p<0.001, <0.001). By the classification of uroflow curves, uroflow curves of controls were all type 1. In PD patients, 12 (25%) were type 1, 6 (12.5%) were type 2, 13 (27.1%) were type 3, 17 (35.4%) were type 5, and none of them was type 4. Comparing results of each type PD patients with those of controls shows that there was no statistically significant difference between type 1 PD patients and controls, while Qmax and Qave of type 2, type 3, and type 5 PD patients were all lower than those of controls (statistically significant). Qmax and Qave were the lowest in type 5 (12.0 ml/sec, 7.2 ml/sec). Conclusion: From the results of our investigations, we suggest that a large part of PD patients have voiding problems and the uroflowmetry deserves to be a screening test for them. We think further studies are necessary to clarify the exact causes involving voiding symptoms in patients with PD.