A device and technique for urethrography in the female

An accepted cause for the symptom of recurrent irritant frequency and urgency of micturition in the female (particularly on assuming the erect position), in the absence of other pathology, is a urethral diverticulum. It is amenable to surgery and its demonstration therefore of value to urological surgeons. Use of an ordinary urethral nozzle pressed firmly into the external meatus with injection of the viscous contrast medium Umbradil Viscous will show larger diverticula (Andersen, 1967) and they may even be shown on intravenous urography or micturition cystography. The vacuum-uterine cannula instrument (McCallum, 1964) has also been used to make a watertight junction with the external meatus (Becker and Gregoire, 1968). Smaller diverticula are much more difficult to demonstrate since the contrast medium can easily by-pass them and enter the bladder, and Davis and Cian (1956) devised a catheter which would obstruct the female urethra at both ends. They used a Foley type catheter with the aperture at the tip occluded and another aperture made on the near side of the balloon. A second inflatable annular balloon was provided which could slide along the catheter. After insertion into the bladder and inflation of the fixed balloon, the inner end of the urethra was closed with the now intravesical balloon by traction on the catheter and the annular balloon pressed against the external meatus and inflated to close it and maintain the traction on the inner end, the aperture of the catheter lying within the lumen of the urethra.