The urge to advance: ICS 2024 drives innovation in continence care

From 23 to 25 October 2024, Madrid hosted the 54th edition of the annual meeting of the International Continence Society (ICS), the leading multi-disciplinary event in the continence field, bringing together healthcare professionals in the fields of urology, gynaecology, physiotherapy and nursing with the common interest of treating incontinence.

The future of continence was the central theme of the meeting, with discussions exploring cutting-edge research and innovations. Talks from multiple sessions highlighted that we are entering a digital revolution in continence care, from the development of mobile apps for self-monitoring and remote patient monitoring to the many abstracts and talks about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in functional urology. Examples of AI application in the continence field presented at the meeting ranged from risk prediction to the analysis of genetic background to the improvement of phenotyping and diagnosis starting from already available data. Some of these topics were also organically covered in a round table discussion in which Andrew Gammie, Wouter Van Dort and Thomas van Steenbergen discussed rationale, methods, potential and challenges of big data analysis in urodynamics.