Tags:Artificial bladder, Implantable biorobotic organs and Volume sensing
Abstract:
Worldwide, millions of people are diagnosed with muscle-invasive urinary bladder cancer every year. The gold standard treatment consists in the surgical removal of the entire bladder and the urethra, followed by the re-direction of urine flow from the kidneys through the native ureters to an external collection bag, or the reconstruction of a neobladder with intestinal tissue. The risk of tumor recurrence, as well as the patient’s low quality of life are among the main limitations of such procedures. Although some artificial bladder systems have been proposed, the design of a fully implantable solution is still an open engineering challenge. Here we propose a novel sensorized hexagonal-shaped bladder allowing urine collection and fullness sensitivity restoration. The foldable structure features an origami structure, which allows to obtain a small encumbrance when empty, and a shape similar to the native bladder when the urine volume approaches the capacity of 250 ml. The integrated sensing system exploits the geometry of the structure and consists of eight thin textile sensors, whose resistance changes according to their stretching. By applying the sensors to the foldable walls of the bladder, it is possible to derive the opening degree of the folds during filling. The latter information is provided as input to a custom algorithm to enable the 3D reconstruction of the bladder and subsequent volume estimation. Despite the tendency to underestimate the volume, the system showed good results with an average volume estimation error of approximately 25 ml. Although prototypal, the authors presented a new robotic organ that paves the way towards fully implantable solutions for the lower urinary system.
Soft Artificial Bladder with Volume Monitoring Capabilities