The Efficacy and Mid-term Durability of Urethral Sphincter Injections of Platelet-Rich Plasma in Treatment of Female Stress Urinary Incontinence.

This study investigated the therapeutic effect of repeated urethral sphincter injections of autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) in women due to intrinsic sphincter deficiency (ISD) refractory to medical treatment or after the first anti-incontinence surgery. Twenty-six women with SUI due to urodynamically proven ISD were prospectively enrolled. Five milliliters of PRP (2.5-5 times of the platelet concentrations in peripheral blood) were injected into the external sphincter at 5 sites, with 4 treatments at monthly interval. The primary end-point was post-treatment Global Response Assessment (GRA, scored 0-3) score after four PRP treatments. A GRA ≥ 2 was considered as a successful result. The secondary endpoints included changes in visual analog scale (VAS) of SUI and urodynamic parameters. The follow-up date was 12 months after the fourth PRP treatment. The mean age was 61.7 ± 15.3 years. The overall success rate was 50% with the post-treatment mean GRA of 1.5 ± 1.1. Complete dryness was achieved in 12 patients (46.2%) after the PRP treatment, and 7 (26.9%) kept total continence at 12 months. The mean VAS of SUI score decreased significantly from 6.4 ± 2.3 to 3.9 ± 2.3 after treatment ( < 0.001). The abdominal leak point pressure increased significantly from 117.5 ± 63.8 to 133.6 ± 61.7 cmHO ( = 0.045). No perioperative adverse events or severe complications occurred, except 1 (3.8%) patient reported straining to void which was self-limited. Repeated urethral sphincter injections of autologous PRP are a safe procedure that provides significant reduction in the severity of female SUI and a mid-term durability, suggesting PRP treatment is effective to increase urethral sphincter resistance for female SUI.