Drug-eluting ureteral stents: An overview

Combating medical implant infections is indeed an urgent need owing to their increasing demands and applications in surgical operations, for instance, dental implantations, joint replacements, and stent placement. Surface modifications and coating of biomedical implants are one of the growing fields to prevent bacterial growth. Ureter stents and urinary catheters are the most vulnerable biomedical implants to the bacterial attack. A ureteral stent is a medical device that is implanted during pre- or post-upper urinary tract surgery and aims to allow normal urine flow from the kidney to the bladder by treating ureteral obstructions. Despite its numerous benefits in urology, it is also associated with many discomforts and complications that result in significant morbidity. These complications include bacterial adhesion, encrustation, reflux, lack of biodegradable and biocompatible nature, pain, and hematuria, and can be overcome by treatment with medications or stent removal. Numerous strategies such as the search for new materials, design, coating of the available stents, and drug-eluting stents (DES) have been investigated to reduce complications and morbidity, however, a gold standard stent has not yet been recognized. Recently, DES has gained immense interest in urology which delivers specific drugs to the proximity of the tissues, decreasing encrustation, and discomfort and increasing the stent performance. In this review, we explain the role of various DES in the ureteral obstructions. The rapid advancement and continuous progress in the DES indicated their use in clinical settings in the near future.