Efficacy and Safety of Botulinum Toxin A for Treating Bladder Hyperactivity in Children and Adolescents with Neuropathic Bladder Secondary to Myelomeningocele

Abstract EN

We verified the efficacy and safety of botulinum toxin A (BTX-A) in treating bladder overactivity in children with neurogenic bladder (NB) secondary to myelomeningocele (MMC).

Forty-seven patients (22, females; 25, males; age range, 5–17 years; mean age, 10.7 years) with poorly compliant/overactive neurogenic bladder on clean intermittent catheterization (CIC) and resistance or noncompliant to anticholinergics were injected with 200 IU of BTX-A intradetrusor.

All patients experienced a significant 66.45% average increase of leak point volume (Wilcoxon paired rank test = 7.169 e-10) and a significant 118.57% average increase of specific bladder capacity at 20 cm H2O (Wilcoxon paired rank test = 2.466 e-12).

Ten patients who presented with concomitant uni/bilateral grade II–IV vesicoureteral reflux were treated at the same time with Deflux.

No patient presented with major perioperative or postoperative problems.

Twenty-two patients needed a second and 18 a third injection of BTX-A after 6–9 months for the reappearance of symptoms.

After a mean follow-up of 5.7 years, 38 out of 47 patients achieved dryness between CICs, and 9 patients improved their incontinence but still need pads.

Our conclusion is that BTX-A represents a viable alternative to more invasive procedure in treatment of overactive NB secondary to MMC.