| Abstract: | In terms of urethral pressure measurements the distinction between stress-incontinent and continent women is perhaps best made by examining the urethral response to stress. Profiles may be performed during the repeated intraabdominal pressure rises due to coughing, or the sustained effect of straining; the relationship between the two has not previously been defined. This comparative study involves 120 patients with a variety of urinary symptoms in whom stress profiles were performed both on coughing and on straining. Parameters of the cough profile were found to be more repeatable than those of the strain profile. and also related more closely to the severity of incontinence. Calculation of pressure transmission ratios from cough profiles also proved more useful. since they allow the acute and sustained components of the urethral response to stress to be readily distinguished. |
