Issues with ProACT incontinence value

For those that are not familiar with ProACT. It is used to aid in reducing incontinence and works quite well. It is something like the artificial urinary sphincter. (AUS) but doesn’t require you to push a button to pee.

Last week I attended a presentation by a urologist who specializes in incontinence. He discussed a lot of different issues, of course, but his experience with products that didn’t work, as well as expected, was very informative.

I know that the urologist I have gone to has said that, even though I’ve had radiation, she would consider using the sling. She was not using. ProACT yet but they were planning on starting to use it.

The Doctor who was doing the presentation had started using ProACT when it first came out. He used it on a lot of patients that would’ve gotten an AUS because he thought it would work just as well, but be easier on the patient. As for the slang, he confirmed that it frequently doesn’t work well for patients who had radiation.

Unfortunately, he found out that the way the ProACT worked was not compatible with people who had radiation. ProACT works by placing two balloons near where your prostate was and they squeeze on the urethra to stop it from leaking. When someone has radiation, it makes the urethra stiffer and as a result ProACT doesn’t work well.

It seems that the only solution to a serious problem of incontinence is the AUS. New models seem to be much smaller.