Objectives: To assess any beneficial effect on quality of life of a daily treatment with a phytotherapic product containing astragalus, thyme, lavender, hop, equisetum, red clover, cypress and agrimonia at titrated concentrations in a cohort of female patients complaining mild stress urinary incontinence (SUI) or mixed urinary incontinence (MUI).
Materials and methods: 42 non-consecutive female out-patients with mild SUI or mild MUI were assessed with a clinical evaluation, International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short Form (ICIQ-SF) and Patients' Perception of Intensity of Urgency Scale (PPIUS) at baseline the start of the study and after two months of therapy with the phytotherapic product. At the end of the therapy the patients also compiled Patient Global Impression of Improvement (PGI-I).
Results: After the completion of the study there was a trend towards better results in each item of ICIQ-SF, but without any statistical significance with an average score in ICIQ-SF-1 of 3.12 ± 0.981 versus 3.21 ± 0.914 (p = 0.556), in ICIQ-SF-2 of 3.69 ± 1.422 versus 3.79 ± 1.372 (p = 0.68) and in ICIQ-SF-3 of 5.95 ± 1.618 versus 6.14 ± 1.670 (p = 0.462). The average reduction of PPIUS was of 0.09 (1.26 ± 1.481 versus 1.357 ± 1.509, p = 0.705). There was a reduction of average consumption of pads/die from 1.69 ± 0.636 to 1.54 ± 0.543 (p = 0.101). In relation to the PGI score, 23/42 patients (54.7%) reported no changes after the completion of the therapy, 13/42 (30.9%) reported a slight improvement, 5/42 (11.9%) were much improved and 1/42 (2.3%) was slightly worsened. Only 2/42 (4.7%) patients discontinued the treatment before of the completion of the study. We did not observe any adverse effects during the period of the study.
Conclusions: The phytotherapic product seems to cause a slight improvement of the symptoms in a good rate of patients. Moreover it has a low rate of withdrawal, due to the lack of adverse events.
Keywords: Mixed urinary incontinence; Phytoterapy; QoL.; Stress urinary incontinence.