Abstract
A new balloon catheter for women with a flexible urethral portion that conforms to the shape of the closed urethra was tested. In sheep control catheters caused epithelial destruction, which was absent with the conformable catheter. A 12 week crossover trial compared control catheters in 52 long stay geriatric patients. Eighty two out of 91 conformable catheters were rated as comfortable compared with 68 of 87 control (p = 0.006). The average length of time in situ was 15.9 days for the conformable catheter compared with 12.9 days for the control (p = 0.001). The average number of bypasses a week with the conformable catheter was 1.1 compared with 1.3 for the control; this difference was not significant. Examination of 249 used catheters showed significantly fewer with intraluminal obstruction with struvite among the conformable than control catheters (1 (0.8%) versus 15 (11.5%); p <0.001). This new catheter for women is a substantial improvement over the Foley catheter (except in urethral stricture) is suitable for all forms of drainage.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1691-1693 |
| Number of pages | 2 |
| Journal | Bmj |
| Volume | 296 |
| Issue number | 6638 |
| Publication status | Published - 1988 |
Keywords
- Aged
- Animals
- instrumentation: Balloon Dilatation
- Clinical Trials
- Female
- Humans
- Random Allocation
- Sheep
- pathology: Urethra
- instrumentation: Urinary Catheterization