lurn: urinary urgency phenotyping protocol

Conditions: Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms

Summary: the purpose of this study is to define and characterize important subtypes of patients with urinary urgency to improve our understanding of the pathophysiology, risk factors, experiences, and comorbidities to lay the foundation for more effective treatment by focusing on the most bothersome and difficult to treat symptoms of urinary urgency and urgency urinary incontinence.

lurn is pursuing deeper phenotyping of patients with urinary urgency and uui using distinct, but related, projects. the urinary urgency phenotyping protocol is the overarching effort, and will comprise five integrated projects. project a, the observational cohort, will be a large-scale accrual of male and female participants with urinary urgency and age-matched controls without any luts. standardized clinical data, comprising information typically gathered at the patient clinic encounter, self-report symptom, urologic and non-urologic data, and biosamples will be collected. using this group of participants, subsets will be identified for more focused and in-depth studies of urinary urgency and urgency incontinence. this more focused effort will be conducted as project b: the central sensitization study; project c: the physical activity and sleep study; project d: the organ-based study; and project e: the qualitative assessment of patients with urinary urgency study.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * women or men presenting for evaluation or treatment of urinary urgency/ uui to one of the lurn sites. these symptoms are not required to be the primary symptom(s) of presentation, but must be bothersome to the participant. * age ≥ 18 years. * the presence of any of the urinary urgency or urgency incontinence symptoms based on responses to the luts tool with a 1-month recall period (appendix a) as follows: answered "sometimes", "often", or "always" on either: * "during the past month, how often have you had a sudden need to rush to urinate?". participants who answered "never" or "rarely" are not eligible since they are not deemed to have significant urinary urgency symptoms. * "how often have you had a sudden need to rush to urinate for the fear of leaking urine?" * positive answer must also be associated with bother rating on that particular question of "somewhat", "quite a bit", or "a great deal" * the ability to give informed consent and complete self-reported questionnaires electronically. * access to and willingness to utilize smart phone exclusion criteria: * a. clinical impression of bladder outlet obstruction (based on symptoms or urodynamics) as primary etiology of luts. b. gross hematuria/self-reported gross or visible urine in the blood. c. significant neurologic disease or injury, including but not limited to: cerebral vascular accident with residual defect, alzheimer's dementia, parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, complicated spinal surgery, multiple sclerosis. d. primary complaint is pelvic pain. e. diagnosis of interstitial cystitis, chronic prostatitis, or chronic orchalgia. f. pelvic or endoscopic gu surgery within the preceding 6 months (not including diagnostic cystoscopy). g. ongoing symptomatic urethral stricture. h. history of lut or pelvic malignancy. i. current chemotherapy or other cancer therapy. j. pelvic device or implant complication (e.g., sling or mesh complications). k. in men, prostate biopsy in the previous 6 months. l. in women, current pregnancy or planned pregnancy during the follow-up period. m. history of cystitis caused by tuberculosis, radiation therapy, or cytoxan/cyclophosphamide therapy. n. augmentation cystoplasty or cystectomy. o. presence of urinary tract fistula. p. current major psychiatric disorder or other psychiatric or medical issues that would interfere with study participation (e.g., dementia, psychosis, etc.). q. inability to relay valid information, actively participate in the study, or provide informed consent (includes uncontrolled psychiatric disease). r. difficulty reading or communicating in english. s. no access to internet/smart phone. t. indwelling foley catheter/routine self-catheterization. u. in addition to the criteria listed above, pregnancy during the study will be a study end point.

Keywords: lower urinary tract symptoms bladder symptoms overactive bladder urinary urgency lower urinary tract dysfunction