Diagnosing bladder outlet obstruction assessed by computational fluid dynamics and medical imaging technique

Bladder outlet obstruction (BOO) suggestive benign prostatic hyperplasia is a common disease in elder men. The present golden standard diagnostics, however, is an invasive method, named pressure-flow studies. The aim of the study is to develop a non-invasive procedure, which combines computational fluid dynamics and the medical imaging techniques, as a new approach for diagnosing bladder outlet obstruction. Based on the computed tomography images, the lower urinary tract system is reconstructed. The flow resistance within the urinary tract is predicted using the computational fluid dynamics. It is shown that this quantity displayed a high correlation (r = 0.86) with the golden standard parameter, BOO index, i.e. clinically measured data for patients with BOO. This indicates that the present method may be potentially valid substitute for invasive BOO index.