Does desmopressin withdrawal strategy affect relapse rates in monosymptomatic enuresis treatment?

Desmopressin plays a major role in the treatment of monosymptomatic enuresis but has the drawback of a high relapse rate after medical treatment. This study investigated the effect of the type of treatment termination on relapse in a large population of patients. A total of 1013 patients who were admitted with bedwetting to our paediatric urology clinic between October 2016 and April 2018 were evaluated retrospectively. Four hundred forty-seven monosymptomatic enuresis patients were treated with 120 μg/day oral desmopressin lyophilisate for 3 months, after which the treatment was terminated in one of two ways: immediate cessation of desmopressin (group 1; N = 209) and structured withdrawal (group 2; N = 238). In the structured withdrawal group, the patients continued to take desmopressin every other day for 15 days. All the patients were followed up 1 month after the drug was withdrawn, and the relapse rates were recorded. One month after cessation of treatment with oral desmopressin lyophilisate, the relapse rate in group 1 was 42.5% (89/209), and that in group 2 was 41.1% (98/238) (p > 0.05).Conclusion: This study, with the highest number of patients among reports in the literature, revealed that the methods used to terminate desmopressin treatment are not significantly different in monosymptomatic enuresis management. What is Known: • It is still unclear how to end the treatment in patients who are started desmopressin because of the complaint of monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis. • Although there are papers in the literature suggesting that the drug should be discontinued gradually or by reducing the dose, there are also authors stating the opposite. What is New: • This study including vast amount of patients managed with desmopressin reveals that withdrawal strategy has no impact on relapse.