Valentini Françoise A, Besson Gilbert R, Nelson Pierre P, Zimmern Philippe E
ER6-Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 06), Paris, France; Service de Médecine Physique et Réadaptation, Hôpital Rothschild, Paris, France.
Neurourol Urodyn. 2014 Mar;33(3):361-6. doi: 10.1002/nau.22409. Epub 2013 May 1.
For the past two decades, a mathematical model of micturition was built step by step. Fundamental studies, presentations of the model and several applications to various male and female lower urinary tract dysfunctions have been published. We expect now that other teams will be interested in using it. In order to do so, a VBN pack (software in Linux and tutorial) is freely available.
The purpose of this review is to describe the model and to show its practical usefulness.
After a short description of the basis of the model and of how to use it, some published applications were summed up. The main application of the VBN model is to obtain a coherent modelling for a given patient from a set of several recordings (free uroflows and pressure-flow study) obtained either during the same session or in follow up.
This experience gradually led us to study what information could be extracted from a free uroflow. In addition, the model is valuable to quickly compute the effect of some additional condition; thus, it can predict the effect of an experimental artefact (urethral catheter, penile cuff).
Because the process of fitting model computations and real recordings is a powerful way to detect unexpected phenomena, the use of the VBN model provides a method to improve the knowledge of misunderstood dysfunctions of the lower urinary tract.
