In vivo evaluations on non-ablative transurethral laser treatment of stress urinary incontinence

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a condition characterized by involuntary leakage of urine caused by increased abdominal pressure. A commonly used surgical treatment is a sling procedure that supports the urethra by using artificial mesh. However, the sling procedure causes bleeding and infection in the urethra as the artificial mesh is inserted into the body. The aim of the current study is to develop and evaluate a new non-ablative transurethral laser treatment for SUI. Female guinea pigs (GP) were used to develop a SUI animal model by inserting a 10Fr Foley catheter into the GP’s vagina under anesthesia for one hour. Then, the urethra in the SUI animal model was irradiated with 980nm laser light at 10W for 5s via a balloon-assisted diffusing applicator (Groups = control, SUI animal model, and laser treatment). The laser treatment group showed an increase in LPP of approximately 53%, compared to the SUI animal model group. In addition, the total urethral thickness from the lumen was increased by approximately 33%, compared to the SUI group. The gene expression related to muscle hypertrophy and collagen regeneration upregulated about a twice fold compared to the SUI group. The current study demonstrated the efficacy profile of the transurethral 980 nm laser treatment in the SUI animal model. Further investigations will be pursued to translate the clinical in porcine animal models and confirm the entire genomes and targeted regions of DNA and RNA by using next-generation sequencing.