Guidelines EAU Guidelines on Assessment and Nonsurgical Management of Urinary Incontinence Malcolm G. Lucas a, *, Ruud J.L. Bosch b , Fiona C. Burkhard c , Francisco Cruz d , Thomas B. Madden e , Arjun Nambiar a , Andreas Neisius f , Dirk J.M.K. de Ridder g , Andrea Tubaro h , William H. Turner i , Robert S. Pickard j a Department of Urology, Morriston Hospital, Swansea, UK; b Department of Urology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands; c Department of Urology, University Hospital Bern, Bern, Switzerland; d Department of Urology, Hospital de Sa˜o Joa˜o and Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; e The Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, UK; f Department of Urology, Universita ¨tsmedizin Mainz, Mainz, Germany; g Department of Urology, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; h Department of Urology, Sant’ Andrea Hospital La Sapienza, Rome, Italy; i Department of Urology, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK; j Department of Urology, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK 1. Introduction We present a shortened version of the 2012 guidelines from the European Association of Urology (EAU) Working Panel on Urinary Incontinence (www.uroweb.org/guidelines/online- guidelines/) to encourage further dissemination. This paper focuses on assessment, diagnosis, and conservative and drug therapy, but it excludes surgical management, which will be E U R O P E A N U R O L O G Y X X X ( 2 0 1 2 ) X X X – X X X ava ilable at www.sciencedirect.com journa l homepage: www.europea nurology.com Article info Article history: Accepted August 23, 2012 Published online ahead of print on August 31, 2012 Keywords: Urinary incontinence Practice-based guidelines Diagnosis Non-surgical treatment EAU guidelines Abstract Context: The previous European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines on urinary incontinence comprised a summary of sections of the 2009 International Consultation on Incontinence. A decision was made in 2010 to rewrite these guidelines based on an independent systematic review carried out by the EAU guidelines panel, using a sustainable methodology. Objective: We present a short version of the full guidelines on assessment, diagnosis, and nonsurgical treatment of urinary incontinence, with the aim of increasing their dissemination. Evidence acquisition: Evidence appraisal included a pragmatic review of existing sys- tematic reviews and independent new literature searches, based on Population, Inter- vention, Comparator, Outcome questions. Appraisal of papers was carried out by an international panel of experts, who also collaborated on a series of consensus discus- sions, to develop concise structured evidence summaries and action-based recommen- dations using a modified Oxford system. Evidence summary: The full version of the guidelines is available online (http:// www.uroweb.org/guidelines/online-guidelines/). The guidelines include algorithms that refer the reader back to the supporting evidence, and they are more immediately useable in daily clinical practice. Conclusions: These new guidelines present an up-to-date summary of the available evidence, together with clear clinical algorithms and action-based recommendations based on the best available evidence. Where such evidence does not exist, they present a consensus of expert opinion. # 2012 European Association of Urology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Department of Urology, Morriston Hospital, Swansea, UK. E-mail address: Malcolm.Lucas@wales.nhs.uk (M.G. Lucas). EURURO-4719; No. of Pages 13 Please cite this article in press as: Lucas MG, et al. EAU Guidelines on Assessment and Nonsurgical Management of Urinary Incontinence. Eur Urol (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eururo.2012.08.047 0302-2838/$ – see back matter # 2012 European Association of Urology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eururo.2012.08.047