Non-invasive bladder volume measurement for the prevention of postoperative urinary retention: validation of two ultrasound devices in a clinical setting

Ultrasound scanning of bladder volume is used for prevention of postoperative urinary retention (POUR). Accurate assessment of bladder volume is needed to allow clinical decision-making regarding the need for postoperative catheterization. Two commonly used ultrasound devices, the BladderScan® BVI 9400 and the newly released Prime® (Verathon Medical®, Bothell, WA, USA), with or without the ‘pre-scan’ option, have not been validated in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of these devices in daily clinical practice. Between June and September 2016 a prospective observational study was conducted in 318 surgical patients (18 years or older) who needed a urinary catheter perioperatively for clinical reasons. For acceptable performance, we required that the volume as estimated by the BladderScan® differs by no more than 5% from the actual urine volume after catheterization. The Schuirmann’s two one-sided test was performed to assess equivalence between the BladderScan® estimate and catheterization. The BVI 9400® overestimated the actual bladder volume by + 17.5% (95% CI + 8.8 to + 26.3%). The Prime® without pre-scan underestimated by − 4.1% (95% CI − 8.8 to + 0.5%) and the Prime® with pre-scan underestimated by − 6.3% (95% CI − 11.6 to − 1.1%). This study shows that while both ultrasound devices were able to approximate current bladder volume, both BVI 9400® and Prime®—with and without pre-scan—were not able to measure the actual bladder volume within our predefined limit of ± 5%. Using the pre-scan feature of the Prime® did not further improve accuracy.