Filling & Voiding Cystometry Flashcards
Define cystometry
Measurement of bladder behaviour
Why is measuring flow rate on its own not a diagnostic parameter?
Some people may use abdominal contraction (increasing abdominal pressure) to strain the flow of urine past the obstruction out of the bladder.
Therefore this masks their obstruction as their won’t be a significant change in flow rate.
How do we measure the pressure the bladder?
- insert a catheter into the bladder
- catheter is filled with saline
- connect catheter to external pressure transducer
- pressure gets transferred through saline to transducer which measures it and transfers it to a PC
- catheter doesn’t fill whole of urethra so person can still void around it
What does the catheter look like?
- actually made up of 2 tubes
- 1 filled with saline for measuring pressure
- second lumen is filling lumen which goes to a connector where patient can add saline to fill the bladder to control its volume and measure the pressure as a result
What is the first step?
1) Drain the bladder by inserting a catheter to empty all the urine
2) Insert double lumen catheter in to fill bladder with saline and then measure pressure using external transducer
What is the equation for pressure?
Pressure = pgh p = density g = grabity h = height
Why do we have a standardised position of the transducer?
P = pgh
Therefore we need to height to be constant between the bladder and the transducer otherwise it will affect pressure
What is the standard position of the transducer?
- transducer should be level with the pubic symphysis
What is the vesicle pressure dependent on?
- the contraction of the detrusor muscle
- abdominal contraction
- gravity
- density
- height
How do we overcome the effects of abdominal contraction?
- add a second external transducer
- links to another catheter fluid filled with saline which goes into the rectum
- this measures abdominal pressure
- not open at the end, has a balloon at the end
- then do rectal cancellation
Rectal Cancellation
Detrusor Pressure = vesicle pressure - abdominal pressure
What is the cough test?
- when measuring vesicle and abdominal pressure
- get the patient to cough
- should see a small peak in both vesicle and adbominal pressure
- rectal cancellation carried out to remove this peak
What does rectal cancellation allow you to do?
Diagnose a neurological/muscular problem with bladder vs. obstruction
What is the advantage of this type of equipment?
- transducer is the expensive part and because this does not come in contact with patient’s body fluids, it doesn’t have to be replaced
- also catheter is saline filled and long enough so will not contaminate transducer
- only need to replace catheters each time
What are the disadvantages of the this equipment?
- The catheters are filed with saline and have a stiff wall so may get air bubbles
- air bubbles are compressible
- air bubbles can block the lumen of the tube and stop the pressure from the vesicle going to the transducer
What practical things need to be controlled when using this equipment?
- height of transducer
- air bubbles in catheter
What are pressure tip transducers?
- rather than having an external transducer
- put transducer on the tip of the catheter
- no problem of air bubbles or transducer position
- but expensive as need to replace transducer every time
What determines the height difference?
- height of the urine in the bladder (h1)
- height between transducer and catheter tip (h2)
= height of urine in the bladder + height between the transducer and catheter tip
What determines the pressure in the vesicle?
= Pressure of the detrusor muscle + pressure in the abdomen + pg(h1 + h2)
- rectal cancellation will allow you to just get the detrusor pressure
What will the contribution of the height of the catheter to the pressure by?
Not huge = will be less than 10cm of water
What are advantages of the pressure tip transducer?
- get over height 1 and height 2
- can measure faster frequency as don’t depend on saline column of water but this isn’t really clinically useful
What are air filled pressure catheters?
- instead of saline they contain air
- air is compressible so there is concern whether pressure is correctly transferred from bladder to transducer
What parameters can we measure?
Pvesicle Pabdominal Pdetrusor Volume of bladder (as can fill the bladder) Flow Rate during void
Can then plot bladder volume against detrusor pressure and see there is not that much increase in pressure which is necessary for a highly compliant bladder (healthy)
Where does the catheter measuring the vesicle pressure go to?
Peristaltic roller hump
- set of rollers with tubing around
- tubing compresses down on the rollers driving the saline into the bladder
- measure how fast pump is turning = rate at which bladder is being filled
- should be at a constant speed