Tissue-Engineered Bladders Successfully Used

Tim,

I just ran across an article in the August 2005 Readers Digest The article states:
" Anthony Atala, MD, professor of surgery at Wake Forest University has used lab-grown cartilage to cure incontinence. He snips a piece of cartilage from an ear and grows it into a precisely shaped piece of cartilage that bulks up the opening from the bladder. He's also grown a human bladder, and if the FDA approves, he'll begin testing it as a replacement bladder for patients who have lost theirs to cancer or injuries." Again, notice this article preceded the article I linked to this original post." It might be worth contacting that doctor to see the latest progress made on the engineered bladder. Rosie Ambs

well, I'll be first in the queue if they get this right! I'm quite happy with my neobladder though. it's absoloutely fantastic during the day now - pretty much normal or what I remember as normal! nights are still a little touch and go. I guess the main advantage would not be having to fiddle with your bowel to make a new bladder. ive been lucky with it not affecting me too much but some people end up being loose and have to watch their diet more carefully. I don't think there's anything ive found I can't eat or drink. including beer. grapes maybe. i remember being a bit loose after eating grapes.

Hi Rosie and Tim,

I also read that article a few dayys back and became hopeful for folks down the road. Seems to me that if they can indeed create a viable construct and get healthy biopsies for cell expansions to complete the "new " bladder it would significantly help everyone with bladder disease. Maybe they will be able to (gosh it sounds creepy) get the healthy biopsies from healthy donor bladders for those whose are diseased. Medicine is amazing.

Take care, Holly

It is great news. with my limited understanding of it, I looked into this some months back. I think they can now grow a new bladder over a mesh dome from a tissue culture. I read that one of the issues is that, with cancer, because your tissue is damaged at a cellular level - the switching mechanism for cell death is up the wazoo (insert your favourite hypothesis here) - then there's a danger that if your tissue is used as the source material, then it can inherit the gentic abnormalities that you have. or something. i also asked my docs about mechanical bladders and his response was that the problem comes in grafting flesh to synthetic materials. its all interesting stuff though and all advancements lead us forwards.

Informative and hopeful articles taken from Uro today June 28, 2007 There is hope for bladder replacement. This is great news for us all. Rosie Ambs

www.urotoday.com/37/browse_categories/bladder_cancer/tissueengineered_bladders_successfully_used_to_augment_cystoplasty.html