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Stress urinary incontinence was evaluated urodynamically in 86 women in private urologic practice. While 31 patients had failed prior surgical repairs and 58 patients (67.4 per cent) reported irritative symptoms of frequency, nocturia, urgency and urge incontinence unstable bladders were found in only 5 women (5.8 per cent) over-all, in 6.5 per cent of those patients failing a previous operation and in 8.6 per cent of those patients with irritative symptoms. Urethral pressure profiles were decreased mildly in patients with, compared to those without, stress urinary incontinence but considerable overlap existed and no improvement was seen in 20 patients cured with an operation. Excretory urography, post-voiding residual urine volumes and sphincter electromyography usually were normal. Women with stress urinary incontinence consistently showed poor transmission of cough to the urethra so that the intravesical pressure exceeded the intraurethral pressure.

The influence of long-term indwelling urethral catheterization was studied by random bladder and urethral biopsies in 62 spinal cord injury patients. Six patients (10 per cent) had diffuse squamous cell bladder carcinoma, 4 of whom had no tumor visible endoscopically. Five of the patients with cancer were among 25 patients (20 per cent) managed with an indwelling urethral catheter for more than 10 years (average 21 years, range 15 to 30 years). The other cancer patient had been free of the catheter for 27 years after suprapubic cystotomy for 4 years. Gross and microscopic hematuria was associated with cancer. Squamous metaplasia of the bladder was significantly greater in patients who had been catheterized for more than 10 years (80 per cent), compared to those catheterized for less than 10 years (42 per cent) and patients without catheters (20 per cent). Urethral squamous metaplasia increased slightly in long-term catheterization patients. Urinary infection was universal and did not distinguish patients with inflammation, metaplasia or cancer. Therefore, the duration of indwelling catheterization seems to be the major factor in squamous changes in these patients.

Anatomical proximal extension of the striated urethral sphincter muscle towards the bladder neck was assessed functionally in normal male subjects and in patients with upper motor neuron lesions. Synchronous cystosphincterometric studies were performed and urethral pressure responses were studied (contraction complexes) at the vesicourethral junction, the supramontane prostatic urethra and the membranous urethra to repeated bulbocavernosus stimuli. All subjects demonstrated positive responses at the membranous urethra. Contraction complexes with amplitudes of less magnitude were elicited at the vesicourethral junction and at the supramontane prostatic urethra in 48 and 71 per cent of the total number of subjects, respectively. The functional significance of the striated muscle component at the bladder neck in patients with detrusor-striated sphincter dyssynergia is described.

Eleven hypertensive children were found to have a remediable lesion, involving either the renal vasculature or renal parenchyma. Vigorous and persistent diagnostic evaluation is crucial and should include good quality renal arteriography as well as peripheral and differential renal vein renin determinations. Revascularization procedures can be successfully undertaken in this age group although nephrectomy is frequently the only possible therapeutic modality.

Factor XI deficiency, an uncommon inherited coagulopathy characterized by an absence of bleeding history but bleeding after an operation or trauma, has not been reported previously in urologic patients. The diagnosis is made by a specific factor assay after an abnormal partial thromboplastin time and the treatment is fresh frozen plasma. Four patients with factor XI deficiency underwent open prostatectomy and all experienced excessive postoperative bleeding and prolonged hospitalization. Treatment with fresh frozen plasma controlled bleeding in 3 patients, 1 of whom suffered congestive heart failure from the fluid load imposed. The fourth patient bled heavily despite fresh frozen plasma and required several additional procedures and 29 units of blood and packed cells.