Surgical implantation of the new FlowSecure artificial urinary sphincter is an easy procedure in males with stress urinary incontinence. Knigth et al. reported 30 to 40 minutes operating time, 4 days mean hospital stay and unnecessary pressurisation procedure in 3 out of their 9 patients. It seems that their results are reproducible.
The AMS-800 artificial urinary sphincter has been the only prosthesis available for treatment of stress urinary incontinence refractory to other therapeutic modalities for the past 25 years. The relatively high rate of complications occurring with the AMS-800 device during this time led to introduce a number of changes in its design that resulted in a new prostheses, the FlowSecure artificial sphincter. The FlowSecure artificial urinary sphincter is an adjustable prosthesis filled with normal saline without contrast. Plain X-rays cannot therefore be used for monitoring, and ultrasound is the most adequate radiographic technique for evaluation. In addition to calculating the post-void residue, ultrasound allows for verifying prosthesis status and for calculating the urethral occluding pressure. A detailed clinical history and flow rate measurement should be used together with the ultrasound scan to functionally assess patients with the FlowSecure device in order to determine the need for adjusting system pressure to the minimum pressure required for total continence.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.