John Michael DiBianco, MD, on silicone vs polyurethane stents for patients with kidney stones

A study presented at the 40th Annual European Association of Urology Congress in Madrid, Spain, compared outcomes with silicone vs polyurethane stents.¹ In an interview with Urology Times^®, John Michael DiBianco, MD, discussed the background for the study.

“BLUES, or Better Lithotripsy and Ureteroscopy Evaluation of Stenting, is an investigator-initiated clinical trial sponsored by Coloplast. [It] is essentially a comparative effectiveness randomized clinical multi center in the state of Michigan, [with the] MUSIC, or Michigan Urological Surgical Improvement Collaborative-partnered hospitals evaluating quality of life and health care utilization after stenting and ureteroscopy in the treatment of stone disease with either a polyurethane standard of care ureteral stent vs the silicone ImaJin Hydro,” said DiBianco, assistant professor of urology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“What we ended up finding was that the 2 main pain-related outcomes were actually not statistically different between the ImaJin Hydro and the polyurethane patients’ daily pain scores, its impact on work afterwards, during the first 7 days after their procedure, as well as how many phone calls and EHR messages patients sent to the offices and the urologists was trending toward significance in favor of the ImaJin Hydro silicon stent, although it didn't reach statistical significance. But trouble doing work—whether patients could continue their usual work—treatment satisfaction, [or] how satisfied patients were with their treatment experience, and as well as if patients felt negatively about the possibility of receiving a stent in the future, those were statistically significantly in favor of the ImaJin Hydro so in general, overall, with the results [there was] no humongous difference negatively as far as the silicon stent, but many of the different aspects were in the positive direction for the silicon stent, as well as several being statistically significantly better,” DiBianco added.

REFERENCE

1. DiBianco JM, Daignault-Newton S, Shoemaker E, et al. Is there a better stent? The Better Lithotripsy and Ureteroscopy Evaluation of Stenting (BLUES) randomized clinical trial comparing the patient experience of silicone vs polyurethane stents. Presented at: 40th Annual European Association of Urology Congress. March 21-24, 2025. Madrid, Spain. Abstract LB2. https://urosource.uroweb.org/resource-centres/EAU25/263407/abstract