Female Urinary Incontinence and Pelvic Organ Prolapse Clinical Trial
Female urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse are common diseases especially in aged
women that frequently cause urogenital infection, voiding difficulty, urinary retention,
pelvic pain, constipation, and coital difficulty, as well as impact the quality of life of
women. Risk factors of the above diseases include pregnancy, vaginal delivery, and
menopausal status. Despite playing a crucial role in the pathophysiology of the above
diseases, the urogenital skeletal muscular dysfunction cannot be fully corrected via the
current treatment modalities.
The human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) represent a prime candidate cell type for
current research and future cell therapy because of their significant self-renewal,
differentiation potential and the relative lack of ethical conflict. With the advent of
efficient technology of reprogramming peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) into
hiPSCs, researchers can generate personalized lines of cells from which it will be possible
to obtain differentiated cells in a less invasive way, introducing opportunities in treating
diseases that are now considered incurable.
Until very recently, little success has been achieved in terms of skeletal muscle
differentiation from hiPSCs. The purpose of this study is to explore the applicability of
the differentiation into skeletal muscle progenitor cells from hiPSC cell lines and the
associated biomolecular messages. It is anticipated that the derived skeletal muscle
progenitor cells can be reprogrammed from PBMCs of female patients with urinary incontinence
and/or pelvic organ prolapse and used in preclinical testing for relieving female urogenital
problems.
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Time Perspective: Prospective