ABSTRACT
The urinary symptom complex known as overactive bladder (OAB) is a condition which affects millions of Americans1 by negatively impacting on their quality of life and contributing to millions in healthcare costs.2,3 Conventional treatments for this disease include pharmacologic therapy (primarily anticholinergics), behavioral modifications, pelvic floor biofeedback, and neuromuscular rehabilitation. When these treatment modalities prove insufficient for the relief of urinary symptoms, interventions such as sacral nerve stimulation (SNS) and detrusor botulinum toxin injections are available. While the use of Botox® in the bladder is new and not yet Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved, sacral neuromodulation for voiding dysfunction has been utilized for several decades, and is an FDA-approved form of therapy for certain types of voiding dysfunction: urge incontinence, urgency-frequency syndrome, OAB, and idiopathic non-obstructive urinary retention. SNS is now considered the standard of care for the treatment of overactive bladder when conventional therapies fail,4 with tens of thousands of implants performed worldwide.5
