This study was designed to investigate the safety and performance of a new implantable system for tibial nerve stimulation for overactive bladder symptoms. A battery-free stimulation device for tibial nerve stimulation (BlueWind Medical, Herzliya, Israel) was implanted in 15 patients. Safety and efficacy assessments were done at 3 months after activation with a 3-day bladder diary, a 24-hour pad test and 2 quality of life questionnaires. Two males and 13 females were enrolled in the study. Mean age was 54 years (range 19 to 72). Five of 15 patients were previously treated with percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation and 12 experienced urgency urinary incontinence. Median operative time was 34 minutes. At 3 months of followup a significant change was seen in 24-hour frequency from a mean ± SD of 11.8 ± 3.5 to 8.1 ± 2.0 times per day (p = 0.002), the number of severe urinary urgency episodes from 6.5 ± 5.1 to 2.0 ± 2.1 times per day (p = 0.002), the number of severe incontinence episodes from 2.8 ± 5.2 to 0.3 ± 0.4 episodes per day (p = 0.017), urinary loss per day from 243 ± 388 to 39 ± 55 gm (p = 0.038) and improvement in quality of life. After implantation, 3 patients received prolonged antibiotic treatment and 3 received pain medication for 1 week. In 1 patient the device was explanted due to pain and swelling suspicious for infection, although tissue cultures did not reveal a bacterial infection. This novel posterior tibial nerve stimulator is safe and easy to implant with good clinical results.

The Brindley procedure consists of a stimulator for sacral anterior-root stimulation and a rhizotomy of the dorsal sacral roots to abolish neurogenic detrusor overactivity. Stimulation of the sacral anterior roots enables micturition, defecation, and erections. This overview discusses the technique, selection of patients and clinical results of the Brindley procedure. The Brindley procedure is suitable for a selected group of patients with complete spinal cord injury and detrusor overactivity. Overall, the Brindley procedure shows good clinical results and improves quality of life. However, to remain a valuable treatment option for the future, the technique needs some adequate changes to enable analysis of the implanted parts, to improve revision techniques of the implanted parts, and to abolish the sacral dorsal rhizotomy.

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common and burdensome condition. Because of the large knowledge gap around the molecular processes involved in its pathophysiology, the aim of this review was to provide a systematic overview of genetic variants, gene and protein expression changes related to SUI in human and animal studies. On 5 January 2021, a systematic search was performed in Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane library. The screening process and quality assessment were performed in duplicate, using predefined inclusion criteria and different quality assessment tools for human and animal studies respectively. The extracted data were grouped in themes per outcome measure, according to their functions in cellular processes, and synthesized in a narrative review. Finally, 107 studies were included, of which 35 used animal models (rats and mice). Resulting from the most examined processes, the evidence suggests that SUI is associated with altered extracellular matrix metabolism, estrogen receptors, oxidative stress, apoptosis, inflammation, neurodegenerative processes, and muscle cell differentiation and contractility. Due to heterogeneity in the studies (e.g., in examined tissues), the precise contribution of the associated genes and proteins in relation to SUI pathophysiology remained unclear. Future research should focus on possible contributors to these alterations.