The Current Role of Botox in a Pediatric Neurogenic Bladder Condition

The neurogenic bladder is a medical term that describes a variety of bladder and sphincter dysfunctions. There are two major dangerous functional problems in a child with neurogenic bladder: high intravesical pressure in the storage phase and high pressure during urination. Two basic goals for urologic treatment in those children are protection of urinary tract from complications and improvement of continence in older children. This review focuses on the current role of botulinum toxin treatment in children with neurogenic bladder.

At the beginning, treatment in this group of children is conservative. Oral anticholinergic therapy is aimed at decreasing bladder pressures during the storage phase. Clean intermittent catheterization enables bladder emptying if voiding is insufficient. Nevertheless, in a number of children such an approach fails, in some patients, troublesome side effects occur. In cases when standard therapy provides no improvement or if complications develop on the proper conservative treatment, surgical procedures are suggested. Operations are aimed at the surgical enlargement of bladder capacity. There are some reports on the efficacy of cystoscopic detrusor botulinum toxin injections in the treatment of neurogenic bladder in children.

Cystoscopic administration of botulinum toxin represents an alternative method of treatment to surgery for children with neurogenic bladder and could be considered an alternative to oral anticholinergic therapy.