Urothelial Biomechanics: Submucosal Sensing of Intravesical Pressure

Measurement of physiological pressures is fundamental to many forms of medical diagnosis and monitoring in the cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, urological and other systems. Pressure is usually measured via catheters, either connected to transducers outside the body or more recently by micro-transducers mounted on the tip of such catheters. However, this requires that the catheters be inserted and maintained without infection and that the patient be tethered to a recording device. While this may be manageable during short term tests such as urodynamics, the measurement of bladder pressure to diagnose incontinence, chronic monitoring poses an additional set of obstacles.