Winners of company's 'Technology Challenge' announced

Subbarao V. Yalla, MD, and Maryrose Sullivan, PhD, both from the VA Boston Healthcare System and Harvard University, received the Verathon Technology Challenge Award here Sunday for their paper titled "Non-invasive Objective Assessment of Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction: Differentiation of Overactive Bladder and Bladder Outlet Obstruction." The prize for the winning paper was $10,000.

The challenge posed by Verathon was to find the most practical and scientifically valid protocol to study the relationship of bladder wall mass and overactive bladder or BPH in men. The goal was to determine how bladder wall mass (also known as ultrasound-estimated bladder weight [UEBW]) measurements could best be utilized in clinical practice. Abstracts needed to present a protocol and explain how that protocol would definitively refine the diagnostic impact of UEBW; and effectively demonstrate the clinical significance of the correlation between UEBW and bladder outlet obstruction, and how it would be implemented in a clinical trial.