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Updated: Feb 4, 2026
An In Vitro Bladder Model of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection
Published on: June 24, 2025
Gains in health utility associated with urinary catheter innovations
Andrei Krassioukov1,2, Yasuhiko Igawa3, Márcio Augusto Averbeck4
1University of British Columbia, International Collaboration On Repair Discoveries (ICORD), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, krassioukov@icord.org.
Purpose:
To estimate gains in health utility for two different catheter features and a support service related to urinary catheters used for intermittent catheterization.
Patients And Methods:
Two internet-based time trade-off (TTO) surveys were undertaken to value vignettes describing two innovative catheter features and a support service. The first TTO survey "Size and Service" included catheters with compact design and the availability of a support service for users; the second TTO survey "Phthalates" included avoidance of potentially harmful phthalates in the material of the catheters. All participants were from the UK; they traded health states against a time horizon that matched their total life expectancy. Sensitivity analyses were done to estimate the impact of extreme values on disutilities.
Results:
The participants (n=890) estimated the incremental value of 0.031 (95% CI: 0.024-0.039), 0.009 (95% CI: 0.003-0.015), and 0.037 (95% CI: 0.027-0.046), respectively, for catheters with compact design, availability of support service, and catheters not containing phthalates.
Conclusions:
Participants valued all three improvements in catheter design. To capture the impact of such design improvements on quality of life and utilities, vignette-based approaches can be a useful supplement to the conventional, generic tools.
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