Comparative effectiveness and safety of cocktail therapy versus combined sodium hyaluronate and chondroitin sulphate (laluril): Intravesical instillation treatment of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome, which one to use?

Objective: To compare effectiveness and safety of intravesical therapy (sodium hyaluronate and chondroitin sulphate) laluril versus cocktail therapy for treatment of interstitial cystitis (IC). Materials and methods: Prospective study from March 2013 till August 2019 including all IC patients presented to our urology clinic. All IC patients underwent basic workup including urine test, urodynamic test and gynaecological/genital exam. Postoperatively, all patients received intravesical therapy. Patients were randomly allocated to either cocktail therapy (NaOH + heparin + lidocaine) or laluril (Sodium hyaluronate and chondroitin sulphate) therapy as intravesical seven cycles. The primary outcome was therapy effectiveness using Interstitial Cystitis Problem Index (ICPI) and Interstitial Cystitis Symptom Index (ICSI) improvement post therapy. Secondary outcome were for complications and compliance. Results: Total of 32 patients were included (6 males, 26 females) with mean age of 43 years (24-72 years), mean follow-up 36 months (15-72 months). Cocktail intravesical therapy was used in 21 patients while 11 patients received laluril. All patients showed improvement on their ICSI and ICPI scores post therapy from their baseline. Statistical analysis showed no significant difference between both groups regarding improvement in ICSI and ICPI index with p-value = 0.552 and p = 0.79, respectively. Infection and non-compliance is significantly high in the cocktail arm p = 0.004. p = 0.027 Conclusions: Intravesical cocktail therapy was equally effective as laluril in treating IC. laluril was preferred over cocktail therapy because of lower side effect; when considering ulcerative IC subgroup, we need large randomised controlled trials to compare therapy benefits.