Improved overactive bladder is a side benefit of new incontinence Tx. (Investigational Drug).

SAN FRANCISCO -- Treatment with the investigational drug duloxetine not only improved stress urinary incontinence, compared with placebo, in 683 women but decreased overactive bladder symptoms in those who had them, Dr. Peggy A. Norton said.

Stress urinary incontinence and overactive bladder usually are thought of as two separate conditions that may coexist, a paradigm that is beginning to be examined more closely, she said at the annual meeting of the American Urogynecologic Society.

These results from a secondary analysis of data from the phase III trial support previous findings from a phase II study. This earlier study suggested that overactive bladder symptoms occur in women with more severe and more frequent stress urinary incontinence and that overactive bladder symptoms tend to resolve as stress incontinence improves.

Both trials focused on women with predominant stress urinary incontinence. Of the 683 patients in the phase III trial, 33% had pure stress urinary incontinence, 20% had stress urinary incontinence plus an overactive bladder, and 47% had stress urinary incontinence and met some but not all criteria for overactive bladder.

The median number of incontinence episodes per week decreased by 53% in patients with pure stress incontinence treated with ...