Urologic Diseases Research Updates
Winter 2009

NIDDK News

NIDDK Hosts Urinary Incontinence Symposium

Researchers met in Bethesda, MD, January 7–9, 2009, to explore new directions in understanding and treating urinary incontinence (UI). Through lectures, poster presentations, and discussions, UI experts from around the globe exchanged information and ideas about a condition that for many people is too embarrassing to talk about.

“The complexity of urinary incontinence requires collaborative approaches that involve researchers from many fields,” said National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Director Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D., M.A.C.P. “The NIDDK is committed to supporting promising new approaches to the treatment of this disease.”

Fostering collaboration is precisely what two National Institutes of Health initiatives—the Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network (UITN) and the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network (PFDN)—are accomplishing. Prior to these initiatives, investigators defined treatment outcomes many different ways, according to Ann Gormley, M.D., professor of surgery, Dartmouth Medical School’s urology section. Doing so confounded study comparisons. Since then, “the UITN and PFDN have established standardized definitions and benchmarks that can be used to measure progress in future studies,” Gormley said.

The UITN is funded by the NIDDK; the PFDN is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

UI, or the inability to retain urine, is common in older people but can be a problem at any age. The annual cost of managing and treating UI in the United States has been estimated to be as high as $32 billion, according to Ananias Diokno, M.D., F.A.C.S., executive vice president and chief medical officer of the William Beaumont Hospital at Royal Oak, MI.

New Directions

With a focus on topics having potentially broad clinical utility, participants at the NIDDK New Directions in Urinary Incontinence Symposium identified major research needs and opportunities, including

• clinical trials that include more diverse populations
• better predictors of treatment outcomes and measures of treatment success
• individually tailored therapies
• techniques to minimize treatment complications
• promotion of behavioral therapies
• greater collaboration with colleagues in fecal incontinence research, nursing, and geriatrics
• better synthetic meshes for the surgical treatment of UI
• increased understanding of urethral function
• exploration of genetic contributors to UI

A detailed summary of recommendations from the symposium will be presented to the NIDDK Council, an appointed board representing the scientific and lay communities that help guide the NIDDK’s research portfolio.

The NIDDK has fact sheets and easy-to-read booklets about UI at www.kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/a-z.asp#u.

NIH Publication No. 09–5743
March 2009

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