News Briefs
New version of innovative home bladder pressure monitor is ready for patient use
The redesign of a home bladder-monitoring device prototype created by UI pediatric urologists is complete, and patients will begin using the improved version in the coming months.
The cystomanometer, envisioned and developed by Dr. Christopher S. Cooper with help from the Protostudios team in the UI Office of Innovation, Dr. Ryan L. Steinberg, and Clifford Curry, is intended to help children with neurogenic bladder avoid decline in bladder function and kidney injury. Instead of waiting for the customary annual follow-up visit to monitor their bladder pressure, patients will be able to regularly monitor pressure at home and immediately report any trends of higher pressure to their provider, allowing for much earlier intervention.
The device is affixed to the end of a catheter and records pressure readings and then sends that data to a phone app. An early version was a simple cylinder. The design was then reimagined to mimic the look and function of a video game controller, making it easier to hold, with a trigger mechanism that is familiar to the children and parents who will use it.
After receiving user feedback on that version of the device, Dr. Cooper and the designers have made further improvements in usability and design.
“We’ve made this version more durable, ergonomic, and water resistant,” Dr. Cooper says. “We’ll be sending these home again with patients this spring and summer for several weeks of use to see if they hold up, and we’ll gather more comments and suggestions from the families.”
In addition, Dr. Cooper says, the casing of the new design can be translated easily into injection molding, which will ultimately reduce the cost of manufacturing the device.
In 2019, Dr. Cooper received the Societies for Pediatric Urology Clinical Research Prize for developing and patenting the cystomanometer. Later he received a research grant from the Southwest National Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium to continue that work.
UI pediatric urologists lead study of objective alternatives to grading systems used to predict antenatal hydronephrosis
A multicenter study published in the Journal of Pediatric Urology in December 2025 advocates for a more objective framework for predicting clinically significant antenatal hydronephrosis, identifying quantitative ultrasound measures — including renal parenchymal thickness and medullary pyramidal thickness — as more reliable indicators than traditional subjective hydronephrosis grading systems.
In a structured assessment of prenatal ultrasound images, the investigators evaluated interrater reliability among reviewers at five centers using both measurement-based parameters and established classification systems such as the Society for Fetal Urology grading system and the Urinary Tract Dilation classification system.
Objective kidney sonographic measurements demonstrated stronger interobserver agreement than conventional descriptive grades, underscoring the limitations of subjective frameworks and supporting a shift toward standardized, measurement-based risk stratification in the prenatal evaluation of urinary tract dilation. These measurements — medullary pyramidal thickness in particular — have been shown to be predictive of the kidney’s relative renal function as assessed by nuclear renal scan as well as the risk for pyeloplasty.
Further studies will help determine if various measurements can be used to either augment or replace the current hydronephrosis grading systems.
Read the study:
Interrater reliability of objective and subjective measures of urinary tract dilation by pediatric urologists: A multicenter analysis. Lockwood GM, Leach AJ, Shelton J, Carter KD, Hansen J, Edwards A, Storm DW, Zee RS, Ebert K, Wojcik L, Cannon ST, Chamberlin JD, Sheth K, Fox J, Braga LH, Welch V, Khoury AE, Kern NG, Davis-Dao C, Dudley AG, Wehbi E, Williamson S, Herndon CA, Cooper CS. J Pediatr Urol. 2025 Dec;21(6):1764-1770.
Read related work published recently by our pediatric urology team:
Increasing thickness of the renal medullary pyramid following intervention in children with posterior urethral valves. Leininger JA, Wallace JB, Cooper CS. 2025 Dec 11:105689.
Growth of the renal medullary pyramidal thickness following pyeloplasty in children with congenital unilateral hydronephrosis. Grandgenett RP, Perry SS, Cooper CS. J Pediatr Urol. 2025 Aug;21(4):936-941.
The utility of renal sonographic measurements in differentiating children with grades 2, 3, and 4 hydronephrosis. Willging AM, Lence T, Pham HTD, Cooper CS. J Pediatr Urol. 2025 Apr;21(2):476-481.
The Hydronephrosis Severity Index guides paediatric antenatal hydronephrosis management based on artificial intelligence applied to ultrasound images alone. Erdman L, Rickard M, Drysdale E, Skreta M, Hua SB, Sheth K, Alvarez D, Velaer KN, Chua ME, Dos Santos J, Keefe D, Rosenblum ND, Bonnett MA, Weaver J, Xiang A, Fan Y, Viteri B, Cooper CS, Tasian GE, Lorenzo AJ, Goldenberg A. Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 1;14(1):22748.
Correlation between renal sonographic measurements and differential renal function obtained from nuclear renography in children with unilateral hydronephrosis. Soukup DA, Pham HTD, Lence T, Edwards AB, Lockwood GM, Storm DW, Cooper CS. J Pediatr Urol. 2024 Dec;20(6):1160-1165.