ABSTRACT
The International Continence Society-‘Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia’ (ICS-‘BPH’) study was initiated following the First World Health Organization (WHO) Consultation on benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in 1991. At this meeting, there was no formal acknowledgement of the role of urodynamics in the assessment of men presenting with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), which were then typically described as ‘prostatism’ or ‘clinical BPH', and the seven-item American Urological Association (AUA) symptom score was adopted as the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS)1. There were concerns that such a short symptom score did not cover the range of problematic symptoms experienced by patients, and that many urologists relied upon symptom ascertainment alone to select patients for invasive therapies, despite evidence that LUTS had poor diagnostic specificity. In addition, there were suggestions that urodynamic studies could be used to identify patients with obstruction who might be more suitable for invasive treatments, thus leading to better patient selection and outcome, particularly in the context of increasing diversification of technologies for the treatment of LUTS. In this context, the ICS-‘BPH’ study was established.
