Continuous quantification of urethral competence with a new tube-foil sleeve catheter.

Increasing urethral occlusion pressures were created with an artificial sphincter in bladder-urethra specimens of adult female pigs. Antegrade urethral perfusion pressures, at 19.5 ml./min. through a flexible F8 urethral catheter with an F12 outflow sleeve of tube-foil, closely approximated the associated intravesical pressures at which leakage from the noncatheterized urethra starts. With this new technique, leakage pressure and thus urethral competence can be measured accurately and continuously, almost independently from bladder pressure and pelvic floor movement.