Additional Treatment of Enuresis Alarm for Partial Responders to Oral Desmopressin in Enuretic Children

Oh, Wook; Park, Kwan Hyun

Abstract

PURPOSE: We evaluated the additional effect of an enuresis alarm therapy for the partial responders to oral desmopressin in children with monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A total of 28 nocturnal enuretic children (male:female, 20:8), aged from 5 to 15 years old, were treated with oral desmopressin. After 10 weeks, the short-term effectiveness of oral desmopressin was evaluated. The full responders (enuretic episode< or =1 time/week) were treated with oral desmopressin only (group D). An additional enuresis alarm treatment was applied for the partial responders to the desmopressin treatment (enuretic episode>1 time/week) (group DA). The medication was continued until the patient showed complete night-time dryness for a whole month. We also followed the long-term responses of these two groups after all the treatments were finished.
RESULTS
Fourteen patients were assigned to group A, and the other fourteen to group DA. There was no significant difference between the two groups with regard to mean age and number of wet nights per week before treatment. During the initial short-term follow-up, the mean wet nights per week decreased from 6.60 to 0.25 in group D, and from 5.60 to 2.35 in group DA (p<0.05). Ninety-two percent (13/14) of the patients achieved complete dryness in each group on the long-term follow-up. During the study period, the enuretic episodes recurred in one patient from each group.
CONCLUSIONS
The addition of an enuresis alarm treatment for the partial responders to oral desmopressin showed an excellent response, with a similar long term cure rate as for the full responders. Therefore, an enuresis alarm treatment could be a reasonable second line modality for partial responders to oral desmopressin.