? Urinary incontinence affects 15 - 35% of adult American women and accounts for a direct health care cost of over $26 Billion per year. It is associated with deterioration in quality of life and causes significant concern to many women. Current surgical therapies have significant morbidity associated with them. Therefore, a minimally invasive, nonsurgical treatment would be a great solution. We propose to address this challenge using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology to develop a valve suitable for use in an artificial urethral sphincter. The Intraurethral Continence Prosthesis (INCOPRO) will use an innovative sphincter design based on biomimetic polymer technology to control urine flow. During Phase I, we successfully obtained proof-of-concept of the polypyrrole valve mechanism including testing in human urine. Further, we demonstrated micro-miniaturization using a MEMS fabrication process. In Phase II, we propose to further this work by developing a matrix of microvalves, which serves as a functional sphincter.
We aim to extensively test the performance of the valve in vitro in a phantom model and further evaluate it in vivo in a porcine model. It is our long-term goal to incorporate this technology into a miniature device suitable for use in patients suffering from the debilitating problem of stress incontinence. ? ?
