https://doi.org/10.4081/uij.2019.222
Diagnostic tools for female urethral diverticulum: Current perspectives
Accepted: 21 March 2019
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
Although once considered quite a rare condition in the past, female urethral diverticulum (UD) would now appear to have a higher frequency, perhaps due to greater attention from physicians. To date, there is no agreement on which is the best method for diagnosis of female UD. Traditionally, the approach was based on quite invasive techniques, such as voiding cystourethrography, and double-balloon urethrography, with satisfactory results but relevant limitations. More recent high-resolution imaging techniques, such as 2D-3D ultrasonography (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have also been applied in the study of the abnormalities of the female urethra. US had the advantage of the outpatient setting, non-invasiveness and absence of contrast medium use; MRI, is characterized by high sensitivity thanks to multiplanar capability, with an optimal characterization of periurethral diseases or its abnormalities, and lack of ionizing radiation. A real innovation is represented by computer tomography-voiding cystourethrography, a rapid technique that allows for high quality simultaneous 2D and 3D images of the urethra, well correlated to MRI and consequently with surgical results. Here, we report and comment the available tools in the diagnosis of female UD, focusing particularly on pros and contra of different methods.
How to Cite
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:
- the author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
- a complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.