Treating male retention patients with temporary prostatic stent in a large urology group practice.

Men with either chronic or temporary urinary retention symptoms are common patients treated in a urology practice. Both indwelling and intermittent catheterization are widely used to treat this condition. These approaches are associated with significant complications including infection and reduced quality-of-life. Infection is a target for quality improvement and cost reduction strategies in most care settings today. We use a temporary prostatic stent (TPS) to address these issues in our practice. In this report, we describe our approach to patient selection, sizing, placement and follow up of 214 TPS placed in 56 men with chronic or temporary urinary retention in an office setting. With the first stent placement, average indwelling time was 27 days. Thirty-two patients had multiple stents placed. Replacement was performed routinely and was generally required because underlying comorbidities precluded surgery. In these patients, an average of six stents were placed (range 2-18) with average dwell times of 31 days. Symptomatic urinary tract infections (SUTI) occurred in only 6 of 214 TPS placements (2.8%), resulting in an incident rate of 0.93 SUTI per 1,000 TPS days. TPS is a safe and efficacious means of alleviating symptoms of urinary retention. TPS does not share the same infection risk profile or quality-of-life drawbacks associated with urinary catheters; this makes TPS use relevant as a urinary catheter alternative or when a urinary catheter is not recommended.