our needs statement is a way to monitor for occurrence with patients with bladder malignancy
to reduce the cost and discomfort of disease surveillance? So we're gonna start with mechanical
solutions to this problem. So right now it's through the urethra, so that could be one
approach, it's using the same approach through the urethra.
So the broad category would just be different approaches, so either transurethral,
which is here, or suprapubic, transvaginal –
Is transrectal one?
Transrectal.
we kinda put those are alternate, okay.
So basically any way to access the bladder. Yeah, I guess we're thinking of every possible
way you can get.
You said trans what? So trans[…]?
Transrectal, transvaginal, and suprapubic. All right. So maybe if we go through the urethra,
if we're trying to be more comfortable and more cost efficient than cystoscopy, one approach
could be just to develop a better cystoscope or cheaper cystoscope.
Flexible.
Change size.
Or maybe some type of coating for the cystoscope.
Or to actually line the urethra with something that reduces the pain or discomfort associated
with transit of devices.
So pretreat it.
Yeah, even if it's a numbing agent or something, that would be at least more comfortable.
There's some overlap once we start talking about this in terms of the imaging, too, so
how we want to image. So for example right now, cystoscopes are using some kind of optical
camera, but if we wanted to talk about the imaging, but maybe we could talk about the
imaging modalities separately.
So what other ways can we still screen the bladder cancer through the urethra? So we're
changing the cystoscope's guise. We're changing the material it's made out of. We're pretreating
possibly to reduce the discomfort, but what other ways? If we can think about ways that
we can survey not every three months but survey once a year. So change surveillance guideline,
right?
This may actually tie in with a chemical
Component or something like that. Yeah, that's true.
So something to disrupt the cells, agitate the cells, to make them more easily captured.
in terms of these specifications, it's helpful to keep them in mind because you know pretty
much the high level goal of what you're trying to reach but you also don't want to be constrained
by what's there, because if you come up with a great idea that may be more effective in
one way that you can overcome or kind of revisit the need specifications, then that's actually
a pretty valuable tool. So it's good to keep it in mind so it keeps you focused but at
the same time, don't be constrained by it. I think our biggest things we all go back
to are cost and discomfort. We talked about approaching through the urethra or changing
cystoscope properties. All of these ideas are based on how to make it more comfortable,
so flexibility, or size, or things like that. When we're talking about alternative approaches,
we're thinking about things that are less painful for the patient.
Yeah, in this case, the need is really about comfort. Right now, patients really don't
like the cystoscopy. The other criteria that we kinda put on there as well are to help
the adoption because the patient isn't necessarily the decision maker. So how can we get adoption
that actually benefits the patient but still the solution is in use?
It's probably hard to work with the constraint of cost or price at this point, so I think
maybe the next stage we can maybe focus in on that a little bit more, but at this point,
it's a constraint. It doesn't really give you much direction.