ABSTRACT
The bladder is a hollow organ that works to expel urine by raising intravesical pressure. This is achieved by increasing the wall stress (tension) of the bladder, which in turn is brought about by contracting the detrusor smooth muscle in the wall. However, the relationship between the force of detrusor contraction and a rise in bladder luminal pressure is not a proportional one but requires that bladder geometry is also taken into account. Failure to recognize this complicating factor can lead to the erroneous conclusion that different intraluminal pressures are dependent solely on the contractile state of detrusor smooth muscle.
