Prospective Longitudinal Study on the Treatment Outcomes of Various Treatment Modalities Under a Standardized Treatment Protocol in Patients Suffered Substance Abuse Related Voiding Dysfunction

With the increase in recreational usage of various soft drugs, such as ketamine, methamphetamine over the world, substance abuse related voiding dysfunction is becoming an important medical problem. However, while the clinical manifestation of the condition is becoming better defined, the underlying pathophysiology is still poorly understood. Moreover, majority of the current treatment is based on the experience on some small case series and there is no treatment data for larger patient sample or standard recommended treatment in the literature. With the rapid increase in patients' demand, there is an urgent need for better clinical study on the effect of various treatment regimes for the condition, to provide more evidence-based recommendation for them. On the other hand, better treatment outcome will also help the rehabilitation of these substance abusers.

However, in Hong Kong, due to the limited funding in the tertiary care health system and the poor social support for the patients, some potential treatment options, including COX II inhibitors, intravesical hyaluronate, and botulinum toxin injection, etc, are not readily available for these patients. Therefore, some patients may receive sub-optimal treatment with more side effects or may have limited access to certain therapeutic options. The patients may have to suffer and this also affects the doctors' experience and hence the formulation of ideal treatment for these patients. If extra or adequate funding is available, it may not only widen the potential treatment options for these patients but also provide more clinical experience and data in guiding the formulation of treatment protocols / recommendation and even guide future research direction.

Therefore, in this proposal, investigators would like to prospectively study the treatment result of various treatment modalities under a standardized treatment protocol. The results will help to evaluate the effectiveness and also tolerability of various proposed treatment options in substance abused related voiding dysfunction. . Because of the certain similarities in the clinical manifestations and pathology of voiding dysfunction and interstitial cystitis / painful-bladder syndrome (IC/PBS), this treatment protocols (referred to later section) will base on standard recommendations of IC/PBS (including the American Urological Guideline) and literature on voiding dysfunction management. For treatment / medications that are not provided in Hospital Authority formulation, investigators will provide to patient if clinically indicated. Currently, because of the insufficient treatment data and also the behavioural characteristics of these substance abusers, it will be difficult or impractical to perform randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials in this area. As a result, a prospective longitudinal study on a standardized treatment protocol is proposed, which will provide some "Real-life practice" information on the management of these patients. The data gathered from this study may also provide basis for future study.