Women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) treated using muscle-derived stem cell injections to strengthen their sphincter muscles experience long-term improvements in their condition, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
The study, which followed patients for more than one year, suggests that the approach is safe, improves patients, quality of life and may be an effective treatment for SUI. The findings will be presented at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine in Urology press briefing at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) in San Diego, and will be published in Abstract 1331 in the AUA proceedings.
"This clinical trial is extremely encouraging, given that 13 million people in the United States, most of them women, cope with stress urinary incontinence," said Michael B. Chancellor, M.D., the study's senior author and professor of urology and gynecology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "We're demonstrating for the first time that we may be able to offer people with SUI a long-term and minimally invasive treatment option."
"The technique to achieve optimal efficacy is evolving, but we are pleased with what this study has shown," added principal investigator Lesley Carr, M.D., urologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and assistant professor at the University of Toronto. "We now have preliminary evidence that stem cells are safe to use and appear to improve female stress urinary incontinence."
Previous studies in animal models of SUI completed at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine demonstrated that injecting stem cells into the urethral muscles increases leak point pressure, leading to the restoration of the deficient muscles. The results of these studies formed the basis for the clinical trial.