 Full programme transcript >>
Urology
Our kidneys filter around 200 litres of fluid a day, nearly all of which is absorbed back into the circulation, but around one a half litres – nearly three pints - will be turned into urine and travel down the ureters to be stored in the bladder before being expelled.
Dr Mark Porter investigates what happens when this complex system goes wrong.
He visits the new Urology Centre at Guy's Hospital in London. There he meets consultant urologist Tim O'Brien who describes how haematuria - blood in the urine - is a clue to a range of underlying problems that should never be ignored. Problems than include cancer of the baldder and kidney.
Mark also speaks to Kay Thomas, another of the consultant urologists at Guy’s, who has a special interest in kidney stones. She explains the various ways in which stones can be treated without resorting to surgery.
Bladder problems make up another large part of the Urology Centre's workload. Urge incontinence is a common complaint where the muscular wall of the bladder is overactive causing it to start contracting before the bladder is properly full, and to do so more aggressively than it normally would.
This means sufferers have to go to the loo more often than normal, and hurry when they do.
Standard treatments for this type of problem include training exercises to teach the bladder to hold more urine before it starts contracting, and drugs to relax it, but new research suggests using botox to paralyse the muscular bladder wall could be help. Urologist Prokar Dasgupta, one of the UK pioneers of the treatment, tells Mark that early tests look promising.
Next week: poisons |
30 min
