Abstract

Objective: Many patients consult emergency services with urological complaints. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology, clinical presentation and treatments of urological emergency cases in a training and research hospital.

Material and methods: We retrospectively evaluated urological emergency patients referred to the emergency unit between July 2012 and July 2013 according to age, gender, affected organ, radiological imaging techniques and treatment.

Results: Among 141.844 emergency cases, 3.113 (2.19%) were urological emergencies and 53.2% of the patients were male (mean age: 49.1), and 46.8% of them were female (median age: 42.8). The most frequent illness was genitourinary infection constituting 41.2% of the cases followed by renal colic (36.9%). Among the urological emergencies 483 (15.5%) patients were hospitalized and 152 surgical operations were performed. The mostly performed procedure was the placement of a suprapubic catheter in 34 patients constituting (22.3%) of the cases. Totally eight patients were referred to another experienced health center due to different reasons.

Conclusion: Most of the urological emergency patients do not require emergency surgical interventions however, timely identification and management of urological emergencies with in-depth clinical evaluation are important to prevent late complications. Therefore the doctors working in emergency services must be heedful of urological emergencies.