Urethrocystometric findings in urgency.

15 women with chronic urgency have been examined with simultaneous urethrocystometry during an exacerbation of their disease. A thin microtip transducer catheter was used for pressure registrations. Both the bladder pressure and the maximal urethral pressure in the erect position were recorded during slow filling of the bladder. Although the patients had severe symptoms of frequency and in some cases urge incontinence in daily life, bladder capacity was almost normal. The desire to void appeared early but was not accompanied by a rise in bladder pressure. Even when the patients felt violent tenesmi, the bladder pressure curve remained completely calm. Only the urethral pressure reacted, with rapid rises and falls of 20--40 mm Hg, as the patients desperately tried to hold urine. Thus, no detrusor activity, but only a certain instability of the urethral pressure accompanied the subjectively imperious desire to void in urgency.