POTENTIAL FOR SCIENTIFIC, TECHNOLOGICAL AND/OR SOCIOECONOMIC INNOVATION BREAKTHROUGHS
The Action is created to dispose of an interdisciplinary network to enable the detection of the factors that cause current stent failure from different points of view and the proposal of improvements, such as the use of new biomaterials (in polymeric, non-polymeric, nano-materials, biodegradable and metallic stents) and coatings. The use of drug-eluting stents, biocovered stents and bioactive stents is not implemented in the Urology field yet, but it has proven high efficacy in other fields related to medicine and biotechnology. Hence the risk of this Action is low, as the panel of partners covers with research proficiency and excellence all the aspects to be developed at a technological and scientific level.
We have to consider that the absence of an interdisciplinary network is the most important factor responsible for stent related morbidity. This morbidity, which implies the impairment of the stented patients’ quality of life and the increase of hospital expenses, is what this Action intends to fight. The socioeconomic aspect of this action, which consists of the patients and the health expenditures arisen from the use of stents, is potentially of great importance. The risk level related to this aspect is very low, because as a result of this Action, guidelines and scientific papers will be published to clear the causes of failure and how to innovate in the urinary stent field, circumstances that have not been clarified so far.
Another technologically relevant aspect is the development of a computational simulation platform for testing and validating urinary stents. This innovation is of high importance, as it will allow the previous study and the innovation of different designs before testing them in experimental models. The risk level related is low, since the partners included in the Action have an appropriate profile and wide experience in computational simulation. Thus, there is a high level of confidence with the ENIUS and its WGs, which will fully accomplish the expected scientific-technologic development.
