The Prevalence of Variation of Resting Urethral Pressure in Women and its Association with Lower Urinary Tract Function

Variation of resting urethral pressure has been reported and it has been postulated that this is important in the genesis of lower urinary tract symptomatology in women. In order to differentiate between normal and abnormal urethral pressure variations several arbitrary values have been chosen and the prevalence of abnormality in symptomatic women reported. However, large variations in urethral pressure may be seen in healthy, asymptomatic volunteers. We have identified the prevalence of urethral pressure variation in a large group of female volunteers and have shown that "abnormal" urethral pressure variation is not associated with lower urinary tract symptomatology.