Regenerated Cell Therapy for Stress Urinary Incontinence: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of regenerated cell therapy for stress urinary incontinence (UI) in humans.

Methods

We searched articles from PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library database published before February 24, 2020. Of 396 records identified, 23 articles on human clinical research met our criteria, including a total of 890 patients. Stata/SE12.0 software was used to analyze cure, efficiency (cure rate plus improvement rate), and complication rates.

Results

No significant differences in cure rates and effective rates were observed for any cell type in males. However, in females, the myocytes with fibroblasts subgroup (82%) and nucleated cells with platelets subgroup (89%) exhibited significantly higher cure rates compared with the other two subgroups (25% and 36%). Pooled effective rates of myocytes and fibroblasts (92%) and nucleated cells with platelets (97%) were also higher compared with the other two subgroups (72% and 60%). Pooled complication rates were 23% and 26% in males and females, respectively, and there were some differences among subgroups. Although some studies reported postoperative complications, no serious complications were reported and most recovered within 1–2 weeks.

Conclusions

Limited studies have indicated the safety and effectiveness of regenerated cells for treating stress UI in the follow-up period, which may be an ideal method to treat stress UI in the future. Moreover, nucleated cells with platelets and myocytes with fibroblasts were markedly effective, but whether cell injection therapies elicit superior effects need further confirmation.

Keywords:

• Transplantation
• autologous
• stem cells
• cells
• urinary incontinence
• stress
• review
• meta-analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

ZH designed the project development, data analysis, and manuscript writing; TY performed manuscript editing; LS performed data collection and manuscript writing; BY, GW, and PL performed data collection; SY performed data collection and data analysis; JL performed manuscript editing and review. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Grant No. 2019FE001(-149) from Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department/Kunming Medical University Joint Project of Basic Research, and Grant No. H-2017045 from Yunnan Medical Science Specialist Training Project.