Scientific publications

What is the impact of post-radical prostatectomy urinary incontinence on everyday quality of life? Linking Pad usage and International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short-Form (ICIQ-SF) for a COMBined definition (PICOMB definition). Scientific Publication

Mar 1, 2021 | Magazine: Neurology and Urodynamics

Ángel García Cortés  1 , Juan Colombás Vives  1 , Cristina Gutiérrez Castañé  1 , Santiago Chiva San Román  1 , Pablo Doménech López  1 , Francisco J Ancizu Marckert  1 , Mateo Hevia Suárez  2 , Imanol Merino Narro  3 , José M Velis Campillo  4 , Francisco Guillén Grima  5 , Marcos Torres Roca  1 , Fernando Diez-Caballero Y Alonso  1 , David Rosell Costa  1 , Felipe Villacampa Aubá  1 , Fernando Ramón de Fata Chillón  1 , Guillermo Andrés Boville  1 , Guillermo Barbas Bernardos  1 , Bernardino Miñana López  1 , José E Robles García  1 , Juan I Pascual Piédrola  1


Aims: To identify the definition for urinary continence (UC) after radical prostatectomy (RP) which reflects best patients' perception of quality of life (QoL).

Methods: Continence was prospectively assessed in 634 patients, 12 months after RP using the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short-Form (ICIQ-SF) and the number of pads employed in a 24-hour period (pad usage). We used the one-way ANOVA technique with posthoc pairwise comparisons according to Scheffé's method (homogeneous subsets) for assessing the degree of QoL deficit related to urinary incontinence (UI).

Results: The continence prevalence is 64.4%, 74.1%, 88.3%, and 35.8% using "0 pads," "1 safety pad," "1 pad," and "ICIQ score 0" definitions, respectively. Pad usage is moderately strongly associated with ICIQ 1, 2, and 3 (ρ = 0.744, 0.677, and 0.711, respectively; p < 0.001). Concordance between classical UC definitions is acceptable between "0 pads-ICIQ score 0" (K = 0.466), but poor for "1 safety pad" and "1 pad" (K = 0.326 and 0.137, respectively). Patients with "0 pad usage" have better QoL related to urine leakage than patients with "1 safety pad" or "1 pad" (1.41 vs. 2.44 and 3.11, respectively; p < 0.05). There were no significant differences found regarding QoL between patients with ICIQ score 0 and ICIQ score 2 (1.01 vs. 1.63; p = 0.63).

Conclusions: Pad usage and the ICIQ-SF's answers provide useful information. We propose a combined definition (0 pads and ICIQ score ≤2) as it is the definition with the least impact on daily QoL.

CITATION  Neurourol Urodyn. 2021 Mar;40(3):840-847. doi: 10.1002/nau.24631