[Value of a visual analogue scale for evaluation of the severity of symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Pilot study in two urology centres].

PURPOSE

One half of French patients over the age of 50 with BPH are not diagnosed. Real difficulties are also currently encountered in the use of the I-PSS in general practice. In this context, the objective of this pilot study was to evaluate the concordance between the I-PSS score and a visual analogue scale (VAS), proposed as a new, precise and easy to use aid to the diagnosis of BPH.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Sixty five patients (mean age: 66 +/- 9 years, mean I-PSS: 13.6 +/- 7.0) recruited by two urology departments quantified their urinary symptoms by answering the question "How much difficulty do you have problems to urinate?": 7 patients used a 10 cm and a 35 cm VAS, 30 patients used a 15 cm VAS and 28 patients used a 20 cm VAS. All patients also completed the self-administered I-PSS questionnaire.

RESULTS

The VAS scores were independent the patient's age. The 4 classes of I-PSS severity were also represented in the VAS groups (p=0.999). The strongest correlation with the I-PSS score was observed with the 20 cm VAS (R=0.91, p<0.0001). This coefficient was 0.26, 0.67 and 0.72 for the 10 cm, 15 cm and 35 cm VAS, respectively. A very close correlation was observed between the evaluation on the 20 cm VAS and the classes of the I-PSS score. Finally, the relationship between the I-PSS subscores and the 20 cm VAS was statistically significant (p<0.0001) with high correlation coefficients (R=0.75 and R=0.87 for irritative and obstructive symptoms, respectively). This VAS did not appear to favour one type of symptoms over another.

CONCLUSION

This pilot study on a small number of patients showed that a 20 cm VAS can constitute a simple and precise aid to the detection of BPH. These results must now be validated by a large-scale study, under real general practice conditions.