July health news: A breakthrough in incontinence treatment

A promising new Canadian procedure called muscle cell injection therapy may help millions of women who suffer from stress urinary incontinence, the involuntary leakage of urine that happens with everyday activities such as coughing, sneezing, exercising, and laughing. 

The therapy uses a patient's own stem cells to strengthen the sphincter, a muscle which normally tightens to control or stop urinary flow. Doctors take a biopsy of the leg muscle, isolate the proper muscle stem cells, get them to multiply into the millions, and then inject those cells into the sphincter muscle while a patient is under local anesthetic. 

Prevalence of stress urinary incontinence
SUI affects one in three women across all age groups, with a slight increase (37 per cent) in women ages 35 to 54."The main problem when women have SUI is their sphincter muscle has been damaged, and it just can't squeeze or close tightly enough," explains Dr. Lesley Carr, a urologist at Sunnybrook Health Center in Toronto. The problem may be brought on by childbirth, menopause, pelvic surgery, excess weight gain, smoking, radiation therapy or just age.

How incontinence threatens quality of life
SUI remains a taboo subject and women who live with it tend to alter their lifestyle for fear of embarrassment, says Dr. Carr. Some may abandon exercise, a common trigger, leading them to become overweight and less healthy. Others will avoid social gatherings and become reclusive, while still others may give up sex to avoid leaking during intercourse.

Incontinence can also be a barrier to happiness. According to a Canadian study published in the March-April 2006 issue of Psychosomatics, 15.5 per cent of women with urinary incontinence (30 per cent of women age 18 to 44) suffer from depression, compared with 9.2 per cent of women without urinary incontinence.

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