Novel Endourethral Catheter that Allows Men to Drain Bladders Mechanically

Background

Clean intermittent catherization is a gold standard care for urinary incontinence patents. A self-insertion of a plastic tube needs to be done 3-5 times a day. This leads to very low compliance resulting in an urinary overflow and high rate of complications. Patients that are not able to use CIC are treated by Foley catheter, an indwelling catheter that stays inside for a month, with an external part that leads frequent infection. Other invasive solutions exist, such as artificial urinary sphincter (AUS) placed in a surgical procedure.

• There is a need for a technological solution to control urinary voiding for easy, sterile and comfortable micturition

Our Innovation

The researchers developed an endourethral catheter with no external parts that could lead to infection. As the device does not have an external interface, it won't allow ascending bacteria and decrease the infections caused by catheterization.

Advantages

• Convenient to use
• Easily replaced by the patient once a month
• The catheter doesn’t require special equipment or training
• Higher compliance, better drainage, and minimal complications

Application for use:

The indwelling catheter allows the patient to urinate by gently pressing his penis, using a simple mechanical valve located inside the urethra. The device is inserted and extracted in a noninvasive way, similar to the procedure of using a standard catheter, and would be done by the patient himself in the home setting.

Opportunity

• Over 85% of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) patients suffer from urinary incontinence due nervous system damage. This inability to empty the bladder leads to Urinary tract infection (UTI) and other complications. One third of SCI patients are hospitalized annually due to the resulting complications.
• There are large number of males SCI patients who suffer from neurogenic bladder in the US alone. Urinary catheters annual revenue in the US is big, and the costs of neurogenic bladder complications are estimated around very high..

Project manager

Mel Larrosa
VP Business Development Healthcare

Project researchers

Yaakov Nahmias
HUJI, School of Computer Science and Engineering
Bio-Engineering