CA16217 - European network of multidisciplinary research to improve the urinary stents (ENIUS)

The indwelling of the urinary stents represents a very frequently used method within the urological practice, in order to ensure the drainage of the urine. Regardless of its composition, polymeric or metallic, it is associated with a high morbidity. Stented patients have functional impairment in many aspects of everyday life, including anxiety, sexual disfunction and desire, loss of labor days, and significant impact in patients quality of life. This decrease in quality of life increase have a significant negative economic impact, with further cost for medical consultations, hospitalizations, increase the antibiotic, analgesic and alpha-blockers intake to mitigate the side effects of these prothesis.

Therefore, prime objective of this Action is to create a multidisciplinary group to identify the inherent problems in urinary stents, related to its design, composition, biomaterials, coatings, encrustation, interaction between urinary tract-stent and fluid dynamics, physiology effects on urinary tract, assessing the problem from different points of view.

Action members as part of clinical, experimental and bioengineering field, will evaluate the applications of Nanotechnology,biodegradable materials, coatings, metal stents, drug-eluting biodegradable designs, and tissue-engineered stents for use in futureurinary stents.

This action will provide an extensive, interdisciplinary training program including scientific/technical, market and social skills contents; this will contribute to strengthen the interactions within the Action consortium and improve the chances of early-career researchers on the job market. Overall, success in this Action will contribute to improved healthy-quality of patients, reduction in health care costs, and increase the competitiveness of the European medical device industry.