Besides life-style changes, electrical stimulation or surgery, pharmacological treatment is becoming the first-choice approach in women suffering from lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), including urge urinary incontinence (UUI) and overactive bladder (OAB). Several drugs for the treatment of bladder storage and voiding disorders are currently available and, in the near future, novel compounds with higher specificity for the lower urinary tract receptors will be accessible. This will bring optimization of therapy, reducing side effects and increasing compliance, especially in patients with comorbidities and in women. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview on the pharmacotherapy of two common inter-correlated urological conditions, UUI and OAB. The study was conducted by analyzing and comparing the data of the recent international literature on this topic. Advances in the discovery of pharmacological options have dramatically improved the quality of life of patients affected by incontinence, but further studies are needed to increase the effectiveness and safety of the therapies used in this field.
Written by:
Cipullo LM1, Cosimato C2, Filippelli A2, Conti V2, Izzo V2, Zullo F3, Guida M3 Are you the author?
1Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics of San Giovanni di Dio and Ruggi d'Aragona Hospital, University of Salerno, SA, Italy. Electronic address: . 2Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Salerno, SA, Italy. 3Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics of San Giovanni di Dio and Ruggi d'Aragona Hospital, University of Salerno, SA, Italy.
Reference: Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2013 Dec 26 (Epub ahead of print)
doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2013.12.024
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24411952
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