Other New Developments: Use of Stem Cells and Gene Therapy

Abstract

Stem cell and gene therapies are progressively entering clinical reality and have the potential to revolutionize medicine. According to the United States National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), the world’s largest hematopoietic cell registry several blood cancers can be successfully treated using blood stem cell transplantation. The invention of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology is one of the main landmarks of stem cell medicine. The Nobel Prize awarded gene-therapy, the therapeutic delivery of nucleic acids into a patient’s cell to treat a disease, is considered another gamechanging technology in medicine and future clinical practice. Despite the enthusiastic situation surrounding stem cell research and gene therapy, both technologies have not yet really succeeded into functional urology—at least on a translational level. The only relevant stem cell applications in functional urological diseases that have been introduced so far have been in incontinence and erectile dysfunction (ED) area, however, no clinical trials using either stem cells or gene therapy have been initiated in patients with neurogenic bladder. Therefore, the following article will focus on stem cell sources and discuss pre-clinical and clinical data in stem cell and gene therapy in erectile dysfunction and incontinence.