Emerging drugs for treatment of urinary incontinence

Abstract

Importance of the field: Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common problem and there are so many advances done in the field to help treat this common and distressing condition.

Areas covered in this review: In this article we have tried to give an overview about current and emerging drugs available for the management of UI.

What the readers gain: Reading the article will help to fill the knowledge gap regarding drugs available for treatment of UI.

Take home message: Anti-muscarinic drugs remain the first-line treatment of overactive bladder (OAB) and a favorable efficacy/tolerability:safety ratio can be confirmed, but adverse effects and decreasing compliance remains an issue. Promising new alternatives are emerging but require further controlled studies to confirm their place in treatment of OAB. Surgery is still the mainstay for treatment of stress incontinence although duloxetine is the only drug licensed for this indication.

Keywords::

• anti-muscarinics
• CNS drugs
• overactive bladder
• scientific rationale
• stress incontinence
• urinary incontinence