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A Phase-Based Electrical Plethysmography Approach to Bladder Volume Measurement

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Abstract

Neuromodulation approaches to treating lower urinary tract dysfunction could be substantially improved by a sensor able to detect when the bladder is full. A number of approaches to this problem have been proposed, but none has been found entirely satisfactory. Electrical plethysmography approaches attempt to relate the electrical impedance of the bladder to its volume, but have previously focused only on the amplitudes of the measured signals. We investigated whether the phase relationships between sinusoidal currents applied through a pair of stimulating electrodes and measured through a pair of recording electrodes could provide information about bladder volume. Acute experiments in a rabbit model were used to investigate how phase-to-volume or amplitude-to-volume regression models could be used to predict bladder volumes in future recordings, with and without changes to the saline conductivity. Volume prediction errors were found to be 6.63 ± 1.12 mL using the phase information and 8.32 ± 3.88 mL using the amplitude information (p = 0.44 when comparing the phase and amplitude results, n = 6), where the volume of the filled bladder was about 25 mL. When a full/empty binary decision rule was applied based on the regression model, the difference between the actual threshold that would result from this rule and the desired threshold was found to be 4.24 ± 0.65 mL using the phase information and 106.92 ± 189.82 mL using the amplitude information (p = 0.03, n = 6). Our results suggest that phase information can form the basis for more effective and robust electrical plethysmography approaches to bladder volume measurement.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Physicians’ Incorporated Services Foundation (Grant #12-30), as well as by the Center for Research in Advanced Neural Implant Applications (CRANIA) at the University of Toronto. The authors wish to thank Rainer de Guzman for his help with the experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    José Zariffa, Vladimir Grouza, Milos R. Popovic & Magdy M. Hassouna

  2. Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    José Zariffa & Milos R. Popovic

  3. Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Magdy M. Hassouna

  4. Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Magdy M. Hassouna

Authors
  1. José Zariffa
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  2. Vladimir Grouza
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  3. Milos R. Popovic
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  4. Magdy M. Hassouna
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Correspondence to José Zariffa.

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Associate Editor Leonidas Iasemidis oversaw the review of this article.

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Zariffa, J., Grouza, V., Popovic, M.R. et al. A Phase-Based Electrical Plethysmography Approach to Bladder Volume Measurement. Ann Biomed Eng 44, 1299–1309 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-015-1397-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-015-1397-1

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