efficacy of percutaneous vs transcutaneous posterior tibial nerve stimulation in overactive bladder syndrome: a randomized clinical trial

Introduction: overactive bladder (oab) is a symptom syndrome consisting of urgency, frequency, and nocturia. it is a common urologic disorder. percutaneous posterior tibial nerve stimulation (ptns) is a minimally invasive, well-tolerated, and effective treatment of oab. recently, transcutaneous ptn stimulation (ttns) with surface electrodes has been used, which is non-invasive. this study examines and compares the efficacy of these two therapy methods.methods: in this randomized clinical trial, 44 patients with oab were randomly assigned to ptns and ttns groups. in both groups, the therapeutic interventions were performed thrice a week for four weeks, 12 sessions. incontinence quality of life questionnaire (i-qol) and oab symptom score (oabss) were evaluated before the intervention, then one week and four weeks after completing the sessions.results: of 44 patients (41 females and 3 males), the mean age of the subjects was 51.95 years in the ptns group and 56.86 years in the ttns group (p=0.9). in our study, the patients’ urinary symptoms and qol improved in both groups over time. both interventions had no significant difference (p=0.796, p=0.372, respectively).conclusion: ptns and ttns effectively improved patients’ symptoms of oab and their qol. ttns can be considered as effective as conventional ptns and a less invasive alternative for ptns in oab treatment.