Diagnosis and medical treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms in adult men: applying specialist guidelines in clinical practice.

UNLABELLED What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Several sets of comprehensive treatment guidelines (national and international) exist for managing male lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), but these are not widely adopted in primary and secondary care, and are not consistently applied across Europe. This paper will improve the consistency of treatment approaches for adult males with LUTS by providing a clear, concise summary of existing treatment guidelines that can be easily adopted by urologists and primary care specialists. OBJECTIVE To review current treatment guidelines (international and national) on managing male lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and to summarize them for easy application in clinical practice. METHODS A group of European urology specialists from primary and secondary care reviewed current treatment guidelines for male LUTS. RESULTS The most appropriate recommendations for managing male LUTS were identified from existing international and national guidelines, and were summarized and simplified for use as a quick reference guide for healthcare professionals managing LUTS in adult males. CONCLUSIONS Current guidelines for managing male LUTS were developed by urologists and are too complex for easy application in routine practice. This brief summary of current guidance should help to achieve consistent adoption of recommendations for best practice, improve working relationships between primary care specialists and urologists and clarify which patients' treatments should be managed entirely by urology specialists.