Stemming Incontinence: Injected muscle cells restore urinary control

Stem cells taken from a woman’s arm and used to rebuild a pivotal control muscle in her urinary tract can relieve incontinence, medical researchers report. For women, this replenishing of muscle cells offers “a revolutionary therapy,” claims radiologist Ferdinand Frauscher of the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Typical urinary incontinence in women, called stress incontinence, results from weakness in the sphincter muscle that seals the urethra at the base of the bladder.