Mobile phone app shows urologists the side effects of medication on the urinary tract

For the first time, doctors can use a simple mobile phone app to look up whether and which side effects drugs have on the urinary tract. Prof Dr Andreas Wiedemann, Germany's first Professor of Uro-Geriatrics and Chief Physician of Urology at the Protestant Hospital in Witten, developed it with his working group at the Chair of Geriatrics at Witten/Herdecke University. The "Witten Urinary Tract Calculator" can be found online at https://www.harntrakt.de/.

"It has long been known, especially in geriatric medicine, that many medications have unknown side effects, are not compatible with other medications and inhibit or promote their breakdown," says Prof Wiedemann, describing the starting point of the project. Often, "multimedication", in which older people have to take 5, 10 or 15 medications at the same time, builds up into a dangerous cocktail. It is not uncommon for such medication side effects with blood thinners, sugar medication or blood pressure medication to be the reason for hospitalisation.

The research team searched medical databases and compared the side effects listed there with the latest research. "The result was a list of 257 drugs that pose a potential risk here. We presented this to 33 experts and asked them to rate whether they had experienced such a side effect rarely, sometimes or frequently," says Wiedemann, describing the further procedure. This resulted in two lists with scores that can be used by urological doctors.

Assessing risks when prescribing a new medication

In the app, doctors can look up various trade names or active ingredients and display their side effects with the "theory score" and the "practice score". Or they can enter the side effects and the app will then display possible "culprits". For the first time, it is now possible to assess whether the patient's known risks and pre-existing conditions may lead to side effects in the urinary tract when prescribing a new medication. It is also possible to review an existing medication plan and clarify whether a disorder in the urinary tract is (partly) caused by medication. The "Witten Urinary Tract Side Effect Calculator" was presented for the first time at the German Urology Congress in September.

Although there are already several lists of side effects, they only look at a specific pharmacological group of side effects ("anticholinergic burden score"), a group of drugs for a specific indication (LUTS-Forta) or a selected group of patients (PRISKUS list, beers list). "We believe that we have created a practical tool with the Witten urinary tract calculator because it provides fast and reliable information specifically for the urinary tract," explains Prof Wiedemann. The development was made possible with the support of Dr Pfleger Arzneimittel GmbH.