Urethral pain syndrome: role of cross-polarization OCT in the study of the disease pathogenesis

Abstract

Urethral pain syndrome (UPS) is characterized by daytime urinary frequency, urgency, dysuria, hesitancy and suprapubic discomfort in the absence of a urinary tract infection or objective urological abnormality. Despite the assumption of a multifactorial etiology, pathophysiologically there is a common pathway. It is assumed that dysfunctional epithelium of the urethra becomes leaky which leads to bacterial and abacterial inflammation and ends in fibrosis due to the chronic impairment. In the routine of a doctor’s practice, there are currently no methods available for structural visualization of the urethral wall at the tissue architecture level. A promising method for real-time imaging of the urethral tissues is optical coherence tomography (OCT). The aim of this study was to evaluate in vivo structural changes in urethral tissues in cases of UPS with cross-polarization OCT method. The condition of the urethra was studied in 43 patients: 30 of them with UPS and 13 with normal urethra. It was shown, that use of cross-polarization OCT allowed detecting epithelial and underlying connective tissue alterations in patients with UPS. Atrophy of the epithelium and fibrosis were identified in 40.6% and in 55.5% of cases, respectively, which is important to consider when prescribing treatment. Thus, cross-polarization OCT can become an excellent diagnostic tool in the routine practice of doctors to identify abnormalities in the structure of urethral tissues and to observe the effect of the therapy.

Speaker

Streltsova Olga S.
Privolzhsky Research Medical University, Department of urology named after E.V. Shakhov
Nizhniy Novgorod

Discussion

Ask question