Ease of removal of thermo-expandable prostate stents

To report the ease of removal of the Memokath 028 prostatic stent (Engineers & Doctors A/S, Hornbaek, Denmark), an important attribute of the 'ideal' prostatic stent.

Data on patients who had had a Memokath 028 stent removed in three different centres in Europe over an 8-year period were collected retrospectively. Standardized forms were used to record relevant information from each physician's patient files.

Ninety-three patients had their stents removed at the three reporting centres; the mean indwelling time of their stent was 12.9 months, and most stents were inserted for symptomatic benign prostate disease. Reasons for removal included recurrent outlet or storage-type urinary symptoms, migration of the stent, stent-related pain, recurrent urosepsis and detrusor failure. The stents were removed on a day-case basis in 32% of patients. Topical anaesthesia or no anaesthesia was used in 48%. Of these patients, only 9% described moderate discomfort or worse. The procedure took a mean of 11 min and was felt to be easy or fairly easy in 90% of patients.

These data show the ease of removal of the Memokath 028 stent, reinforce its overall success in achieving the requirements of the ideal intraprostatic stent, and further emphasize the advantages of this implant over the epithelializing, permanent intraprostatic stent.