Comparison of the diagnosis and medication strategy for patient of benign prostatic hyperplasia between urologist and geriatrician in China

Abstract

Objective To promote the standardization of medical practice in China by comparing the discrepancies of diagnosis and medication strategies for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) between urologists and geriatricians.Methods Departments of urology and geriatrics in general hospitals in China were selected through stratified sampling and 145 315 patients who went for the outpatient service in certain days during December 2011 to December 2012 were recruited by cluster.Questionnaires were completed by corresponding doctors and data of patient clinical characteristics as well as diagnostic and therapeutic pattern were collected.Results A total of 142 511 valid questionnaires were collected with 119 426 from urology and 23 085 from geriatrics.The average age of BPH patients was (68.34±8.61) years and the average IPSS was 17.93±4.73.The rates of diagnostic method were IPSS (99.2％),ultrasonic inspection (86.0％),digital rectal examination (DRE) (66.0％) and urine flow rate test (55.2％).The rate of ultrasonic application was lower while the rates of other methods were higher among urologists (P＜0.01) ; the rate of DRE among urologists was 2.2 times to that among geriatricians.For patients with moderate or severe symptoms,most urologists (72.1％ in moderate patients and 79.9％ in severe patients) applied drug-combination strategy and the rate was 2 times to that among geriatricians (P＜0.01).In contrast,most geriatricians (59.7％ in moderate patients and 56.1％ in severe patients) applied single drug to BPH patients.Urologists utilized α-receptor blockers,plant preparations and traditional Chinese medicine more frequently than geriatricians (P＜0.01).Conclusions Urologists performed more integrated diagnosis strategy compared with geriatricians.The urologists tended to use 5α-reductase inhibitor combined with α-receptor blocker to treat BPH patients with moderate or severe symptoms,while geriatricians preferred 5α-reductase inhibitor alone. Key words: Prostatic hyperplasia ; Urologist ; Geriatrician ; Diagnosis strategy ; Medication strategy