Ultrastructure changes in geriatric bladder dysfunction

Recent prospective, comparative ultrastructural/urodynamic studies on geriatric voiding dysfunction, including its natural evolution, have revealed that abnormalities of detrusor behavior have specific correlates in detrusor microstructure represented by distinctive electron-microscopic patterns. Each electron-microscopic pattern comprises a constellation of features in two or all three tissue compartments of the detrusor (smooth muscle, interstitium, intrinsic nerves). The pattern characteristic of each dysfunction is the same in detrusors of men and women. The electron-microscopic patterns are additive when multiple abnormalities coexist. All distinctive patterns of various clinical voiding dysfunctions can readily be defined qualitatively in endoscopic biopsies of the detrusor. These observations, including those on material studied for the natural evolution of geriatric voiding dysfunction, have led to the proposal of a clinical/structural definition of the normal aging detrusor and the development of an algorithm for pathologic diagnosis of geriatric voiding dysfunction.