A CLINICAL VIEW OF PRESSURE-FLOW STUDIES

Lower-urinary-tract symptoms might be due to bladder dysfunction, infr avesical obstruction, or both, and these conditions give rise to the s ame type of symptoms. Classification of symptomatic benign prostatic h yperplasia (BPH) patients into obstructed or unobstructed cases can be done only by pressure-flow studies. This classification has been demo nstrated to be of predictive value for the outcome of surgical treatme nt, both symptomatically and urodynamically. Pressure-flow studies are therefore helpful in the pretreatment workup of patients in regard to both diagnosing the underlying pathophysiology and, consequently, str atifying patients for different treatments or watchful waiting. Differ ent methods of interpreting pressure-flow investigations share the sam e theoretical foundation and therefore have only minor differences in classifying patients into obstructed or unobstructed cases. The more a dvanced methods make a more differentiated classification possible, bu t these are currently mostly of theoretical value in research.