Abstract
Acute urinary retention (AUR) is a troublesome urological disease, which causes various lower urinary tract symptoms. However, only few studies explored and evaluated the effective treatments to improve AUR. We aimed to find an effective approach to cure AUR through comparing the efficacy of existing classical low-frequency transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and novel intravesical electrical stimulation (IVES). A total of 24 AUR female rats were divided into 3 groups as follows: control, TENS, and IVES groups. Rats in the control group had no fake stimulation. Rats in the TENS and IVES groups underwent transcutaneous or intravesical stimulation of a symmetrical biphasic rectangular current pulse with a frequency of 35 Hz, 30 min per day, for seven consecutive days. IVES significantly reduced the actin expression in the submucosal layer but increased its expression in the detrusor layer (p = 0.035, p = 0.001). The neovascularization in the submucosal layer in the IVES group was significantly increased than in the other 2 groups (p = 0.006). Low-frequency IVES performed better than TENS in terms of simultaneously relieving bladder hyperactivity, accelerating epithelial recovery, and strengthening detrusor muscle. IVES may be a promising therapeutic approach for bladder dysfunction, specifically for AUR and overactive bladder in clinical practice.
Highlights
As a severe health problem, acute urinary retention (AUR) is often caused by obstruction of lower urinary tract
Few studies have reported that intravesical electrical stimulation (IVES) may have direct effect on the bladder, especially on detrusor muscle, and such approach may be more effective for relieving urinary retention or neurogenic bladder dysfunction [5, 6]
At 24 h after the Acute urinary retention (AUR) model established, all rats were diagnosed with bladder hyperactivity (Figure 2B)
Summary
As a severe health problem, acute urinary retention (AUR) is often caused by obstruction of lower urinary tract. Previous studies have reported that bladder overdistension of AUR induces stretch damage of the detrusor muscle, nerve, and other bladder structures, Intravesical Electrical Stimulation for Treating AUR resulting in acontractile detrusor, detrusor overactivity, and low compliance bladders with/or without voiding problem [2, 3]. The most common approach to apply LFES is transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). It is convenient and less invasive, TENS has the disadvantage of uncertain electrical energy on the bladder, and its failure rate is relatively high [4]. Few studies have reported that intravesical electrical stimulation (IVES) may have direct effect on the bladder, especially on detrusor muscle, and such approach may be more effective for relieving urinary retention or neurogenic bladder dysfunction [5, 6]. There is no study focusing on the histological changes caused by IVES
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