The artificial bladder

Abstract

An artificial bladder should provide adequate urine storage, allow volitional complete evacuation of urine and preserve renal function. Moreover, its structure has to be biocompatible, resistant to urinary encrustation and tolerant to bacterial infection. Various solutions have been proposed over the years to achieve these multiple requirements. However, most of these solutions and their corresponding prototypes did not advance beyond the stage of a preliminary report of experimental data. This review will bring out the 'proof of principal' in alloplastic prosthetic bladder, including type of alloplast and design concept and the recent development in tissue engineering approaches.