TUCSON Study: Tackling Underlying Causes Of Sleep Related Nocturia

Study rationale and unmet medical need:

In current urological practice, patients complaining from nocturia are not systematically screened for underlying pathology that could cause their nocturnal voiding complaints. Even though guidelines recommend screening for other factors besides the urological ones, it remains difficult to implement these strategies in daily practice during consultation. Clear cut questionnaires to screen for OSAS or underlying sleep disorders remain cumbersome and it is yet to be investigated if there is a difference in voiding and sleep pattern between the different causal entities of nocturia.

In order to provide a clinical helpful assessment for urologists for possible missed causes of nocturia, we aim to investigate the voiding and sleep pattern through questionnaires and sleep and voiding diaries in patients consulting the urology department, sleep clinic and pneumology department. An assessment of the prevalence of missed underlying causes will be made and a subset of patients will be asked to deliver urine samples from every night time and first morning void to further investigate possible differences in urine content between the groups.

First of all, with this research the aim is to offer an idea about the order of magnitude for missed underlying causes of nocturia. Secondly, to offer a useful screening tool for underlying pathology in clinical practice and thirdly, to discover a specific sleep and voiding pattern for the different entities of nocturia.

Study objectives: