You must have come across urethral catheterization as a routine medical procedure which facilitates direct drainage of the urinary bladder from the bladder into a bag along a tube or continuous pipe. Painful as it may seem, this procedure is essential for patients across all groups, mostly to help them to relieve urine because of their inability to pee. Known as urinary catheter, it is a type of medical catheter, used for different diagnostic purposes or to serve various therapeutic ends such as to relieve urinary retention, instill medication, or provide irrigation. Medical catheters are tubes–of varying diameter and flexibility–used in healthcare to deliver medications, fluids or gases to patients and to drain bodily fluids such as urine. They may be made up of plastic, silicon rubber, PVC and nylon and includes neurovascular Catheters, intravenous catheters, urinary catheters and chest drainage tubes. Of these, silicone is the most commonly chosen material due to its inertness as it does not react with body fluids.
Catheterization is considered as a primary co-procedure along with other medical procedures such as angioplasty, cardiac electrophysiology, and neurosurgery and others. Increasing cardiovascular diseases and rising demand for minimal invasive surgeries, the rising incidence of diabetes, urinary bladder failure, kidney failures along with major technological enhancements in the equipment which can relief pain are the factors that will foster the growth of the market.
Technical advancements and other developments in the technology used to insert these catheters may be useful in instances of long-term administration of medications such as antibiotics in patients. Or, simply such enhancements in designing equipment may be popular driven by relieving pain in patients. A recent development earlier this year shows the adductor canal catheter has claimed to lower pain among patients following total knee arthroplasty (TKA). This has been confirmed through the results conducted by researchers from Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University hospital.
Companies manufacturing tubing used in catheter develop innovative evolving requirements of medical catheters and devices to keep up with evolving trends of medical catheters and devices. Putnam Plastics Corp. Dayville, Conn., pioneering in extrusion technologies for medical catheters and devices, has developed an advanced tri-layer tubing technology with improved tensile and burst strength, with reduced elongation properties. The new Super-Tri tubing helps in the prevention of wire lock-up in catheters which involves guidewires. The tubing utilizes the material combination similar to traditional tri-layer tubing while offering superior performance characteristics. The tri-layer tubing is mostly used in PTCA (percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty) delivery systems and involves a HDPE inner layer for lubricity, thus providing a unique combination of strength, bondability and trackability.
Another Ohio-based manufacturer PercuVision LLC that deals mostly with developing high-end urinary catheters claimed it has sold its visually guided catheter-placement system to as many as 20 smaller rural hospitals over the past two years since it received federal approval to market the equipment. Since then, the company is also engaged in developing advanced versions for other medical procedures, such as inserting a feeding tube through the nose that may be camera-equipped. The company opines that offering visually guided camera-equipped catheter will lead to less complication and cost savings. Led by such developments, the opportunities for catheters market. As per a recent report by Allied Market Research, the market would reach $42.5 billion by 2020, registering CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period of 2014-2020.
