Treatment of female stress incontinence with midodrine: preliminary report.

For 10 days 21 female patients with clinical stages I to III stress incontinence and 4 continent control female patients were treated with the alpha-sympathomimetic midodrine. Urethrometry revealed that alpha-adrenergic stimulation resulted in an increase in the urethral occlusion pressure of up to 30 per cent and, cystometrically, to an increase in the detrusor pressure of up to 35 per cent without impairment of bladder capacity. In the stage I group 83 per cent and in the stage II group 63 per cent of the patients became continent. Midodrine, the advantage of which over comparable sympathomimetics, such as ephedrine, synephrine and norphenylephrine, lies in the absolutely sure and sustained action in oral use, is recommended as an alternative therapy to traditional surgical procedures in the treatment of stages I and II female stress incontinence.