Combination therapies for the management of nocturia and its comorbidities

Abstract

Nocturia is the most bothersome lower urinary tract symptom. It has a multifactorial etiology. It had been thought nocturia was a nonspecific symptom of lower urinary system dysfunction, but it has been determined that many diseases, related to different organ systems, might be reasons for this nonspecific symptom. Along with the importance of systemic diseases that cause nocturia, the symptom itself has adverse effects on patients' health and quality of life. There are several studies reporting a direct relationship between nocturia and depression, cognitive dysfunction, mood disturbances, falls, and fractures. For this reason, it is important to treat nocturia both to increase quality of life and to decrease related complications. Treatment opportunities have been under investigation for 20 years. Most of the studies in the literature have reported the results of single-drug medication on nocturia, which may be insufficient for a situation that has such a multifactorial etiology. In this review, we evaluated the success of different treatment combinations on nocturia.