Seventeen years ago, Mr Arun Sahai received funding from The Urology Foundation to look at the possibility of using Botox to treat patients with Overactive Bladder (OAB). He ran the world’s first ever level 1 double blind placebo controlled trial of Botox as a treatment for idiopathic OAB.
His TUF-funded work now means that millions of people across the globe have access to Botox to treat OAB, one of urology’s most debilitating diseases.
Overactive Bladder (OAB) affects 1 in 8 people, which is more people than diabetes, asthma, and osteoporosis and, although it can ruin a life, it’s rarely spoken about and few people have heard of it.
If a person has OAB, they cannot hold their bladder. It means that they could find themselves rushing to the toilet at any moment of the day.
The fear of not being able to find the toilet in time leaves some patients housebound, whilst for others it has a dramatic impact on work and family life. OAB can completely dominate a life.
Mr Arun Sahai is TUF researcher who used TUF’s funding to show that Botox, one of the most deadly poisons on the planet, can be used to effectively treat OAB.
In the early 2000s a team in Switzerland began to test the use of Botulinum toxin, more commonly known as Botox, as a treatment for patients who had Over Active Bladder (OAB) because of neurological conditions, such as spinal cord injury, or MS.
In 2005 TUF funded research by Arun Sahai into using Botox to treat patients with OAB who had no associated neurological condition. This became the world’s first level 1 double blind placebo controlled trial of Botox as a treatment for idiopathic OAB, and showed the effect it had in patients whose bladders were overactive during the filling or storing phase being able to hold more urine, and the urgency related incontinence either improved or resolved completely. Botox now appears as standard of care in all international guidelines in managing refractory OAB.
If you find it hard to control your bladder, don’t suffer in silence. Go and see your GP because, thanks to TUF research, there are treatments that are readily available to you!
