Urinary levels of glycosaminoglycans in patients with idiopathic detrusor overactivity.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: We assessed whether urinary excretion of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) may be affected by a condition of detrusor overactivity (DO).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated 24-h urinary excretion of GAGs in 25 patients (mean age 63.81 years) with DO and in 14 healthy controls (mean age 65.75 years). No patients or controls had urinary tract infection. The excretion of GAGs was measured on the basis of total urine volume and normalized to creatinine concentration. Student's test was employed to check between the urinary excretion of GAGs in the two groups.

RESULTS: The urinary content of GAGs discovered in control group was significantly higher than that in pathological group for the ratio GAGs/creatinine concentration.

CONCLUSIONS: The low content of GAGs might be due to relative ischemia of the bladder wall epithelial layer following a chronically increased contractile activity of the detrusor even if further studies are needed to confirm this finding.