Female Stress Urinary Incontinence

As part of a team of Biomedical Engineers I developed a minimally invasive treatment for female stress urinary incontinence. We began by assessing the market need, setting out the needs of the patients and the surgeons. This then informed our engineering requirements, and the innovation began! I was an integral innovator and prototype developer on the team, working on materials, manufacturing, design and mechanical behavior. I am excited to think that some day this device could help millions of women around the world!

20-40% of women today suffer from stress unitary incontinence (SUI). SUI is defined as the involuntary loss of urine due to an event such as a cough, laugh or while being active. SUI can cause social isolation and psychological distress, and can lead to urethral hypermobility and bladder prolapse. There have been many complications associated with current treatments for SUI.

The gold standard in vaginal meshes has been the tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) procedure for which there were many knitted microporous monofilament polypropylene meshes on the marked. Many of these have been removed due to extensive lawsuits over mesh erosion, with costs estimated at over $2,666 a year per patient per mesh due to surgical costs and legal fees. Our solution seeks to eliminate the risks associated with the TVT surgical procedure. Vaginal meshes have been reclassified as Class III medical devices in the US and Europe, and thus pre-market approval (PMA) is required for the development of any new products in this area.