Stem cell therapy in fecal incontinence: a narrative review

The main treatment for fecal incontinence is sphincter repair surgery; however, its outcome is not that satisfactory and return of fecal incontinence symptoms is common, especially in long term follow up of the patients. On the other hand, alternative methods such as using mesh or artificial sphincters are not ideal due to high morbidity and probability of device failure and the effect of methods such as injection of bulking agents are limited by numerous factors like absorption of the injected agent, its migration, fat embolism and formation of granuloma. Therefore, tendency to alternative or supplemental treatments such as using stem cells for replacing the lost tissue is increasing. In this study, the aim is to do a narrative review on cellular strategies and their strong and weak points in treating fecal incontinence.