IUGA report on reporting urodynamics in women

Urodynamics (UDS) is the current gold standard investigation for explaining pathology in lower urinary tract dysfunction. The role of UDS is to answer a urodynamic question based on reproducing the patient’s symptoms. Despite the introduction of several standardization documents on terminology and methodology for performing UDS and the standard of equipment required, there remains no standardization on how to report and therefore how to interpret UDS findings. The lack of guidance in this specific area may undermine the value of this extremely important tool in the patient evaluation. The aim of this article is to propose a standardized proforma and checklist for the reporting of UDS studies; the main text discusses the rationale for the proforma.

This document underwent four rounds of review by the working group and external review by Andrew Gammie. Between each round the document was re-circulated for comment and the comments collated and then reviewed for adoption or rejection based on consensus prior to the document going for further external review. The comments of the external review were then collated and again circulated for consideration prior to adoption based on consensus and the paper put out to review by an IUGA committee public consultation prior to being submitted for publication.

This article sets out the rationale for a standardized proforma for reporting female UDS.

This document gives a standardized approach to reporting of UDS. The importance of this is based on UDS being part of a process and not an isolated event. Standardized reporting, like the WHO checklist, gives a framework to ensure that the test has been ordered appropriately and that the final report refers to the indication rather than merely the observations. As such, a standardized report has a better chance of being interpreted appropriately for the woman’s symptoms.