DETRUSOR ACTIVITY INDEX - QUANTIFICATION OF DETRUSOR OVERACTIVITY BY AMBULATORY MONITORING

Purpose: Ambulatory urodynamic monitoring has been developed and evalu ated during the last decade, and its appreciation is growing rapidly. We investigated the usefulness of this technique to quantify detrusor activity, and developed a parameter to quantify the grade of detrusor overactivity. Materials and Methods: We investigated 167 female patien ts with lower urinary tract symptoms and 61 asymptomatic volunteers. D etrusor behavior was classified according to the medical history findi ngs and independently based on urodynamic investigation. The possible categories were termed overactive or not overactive. Subjects who were classified consistently formed the 2 reference groups, which were use d in the statistical analysis of logistic regression. Results: By logi stic regression a scoring rule was developed. The individual score (de trusor activity index 0 to 1) is a measure of detrusor activity during the filling phase. At a cutoff point of 0.41 the sensitivity equaled specificity of 85% in our patient and volunteer groups. Conclusions: T he scoring rule can be applied clinically as a test to detect and quan tify detrusor overactivity in patients with urinary incontinence.