[Stem cells and regenerative medicine in urology, part 2: urothelium, urinary bladder, urethra and prostate]

Abstract

Introduction: Investigation in cell therapy and regenerative medicine, mainly developed around stem cell research, is reaching promising results in every medical specialities. There are also being great advances in Urology, despite the difficulties researchers are facing, as complete identification and isolation of human urothelial and prostatic stem cells has not been possible yet, although many groups are close to achieve it.

Material and methods: We performed an electronic research through the Pubmed database, of both original and review publications, with the following search criteria: "stem cells urology", "urothelial stem cells", "bladder stem cells", "prostate stem cells", "urethra stem cells", "cell therapy urology", "tissue engineering urology" y "regenerative medicine urology".

Results: We reviewed 30 articles published up to November 2009, trying to summarize thoroughly the most relevant findings and the last advances in this field, from the first steps to this day.

Conclusion: Despite the great lack of knowledge existing, especially the need for achieving the identification of kidney, urothelium and prostate stem cells, this shouldn't prevent researchers from translating the laboratory results to the clinical work.