Partial cystectomy procedures for urinary bladder-related dysfunction involve long recovery periods, during which urodynamic studies (UDS) intermittently assess lower urinary tract function. However, UDS are not patient-friendly, they exhibit user-to-user variability, and they amount to snapshots in time, limiting the ability to collect continuous, longitudinal data. These procedures also pose the risk of catheter-associated urinary tract infections, which can progress to ascending pyelonephritis due to prolonged lower tract manipulation in high-risk patients. Here, we introduce a fully bladder-implantable platform that allows for continuous, real-time measurements of changes in mechanical strain associated with bladder filling and emptying via wireless telemetry, including a wireless bioresorbable strain gauge validated in a benchtop partial cystectomy model. We demonstrate that this system can reproducibly measure real-time changes in a rodent model up to 30 d postimplantation with minimal foreign body response. Studies in a nonhuman primate partial cystectomy model demonstrate concordance of pressure measurements up to 8 wk compared with traditional UDS. These results suggest that our system can be used as a suitable alternative to UDS for long-term postoperative bladder recovery monitoring.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2024 Mar 28 [Epub]
Jihye Kim, Matthew I Bury, Kyeongha Kwon, Jae-Young Yoo, Nadia V Halstead, Hee-Sup Shin, Shupeng Li, Sang Min Won, Min-Ho Seo, Yunyun Wu, Do Yun Park, Mitali Kini, Jean Won Kwak, Surabhi R Madhvapathy, Joanna L Ciatti, Jae Hee Lee, Suyeon Kim, Hanjun Ryu, Kento Yamagishi, Hong-Joon Yoon, Sung Soo Kwak, Bosung Kim, Yonggang Huang, Lisa C Halliday, Earl Y Cheng, Guillermo A Ameer, Arun K Sharma, John A Rogers
Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208., Division of Pediatric Urology, Department of Surgery, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60611., School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea., Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208., Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea., Department of Information Convergence Engineering, Pusan National University, Yangsan 50612, Republic of Korea., Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611., Biologic Resources Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612.