Surgery and collagen stop leakage.

Approximately 20,000,000 Americans experience urinary incontinence. Seventy-five percent of those with this embarrassing problem are women and about 120,000 are men after prostate surgery. Studies have shown that 15% of healthy, 40-year-old and 30% of healthy, active women older than 50 report regular urinary leakage. Many of these individuals may not know that newer methods of treatment could help them stay dry, suggest Jack Winters, Department of Urology, Ochsner Clinic, New Orleans, La.

Incontinence may be treated with biofeedback training, exercises, or medications. Many of the surgical options involve short stays in the hospital. In some selected patients. Winters uses collagen injections to "bulk up" the bladder neck so that it can control the flow of urine.

For more than 50 women, he has performed a simple bladder neck suspension through a vaginal incision, which requires only an overnight hospital stay. More than 80% of those who have undergone this surgery have a successful outcome -- no urine leakage or difficulty urinating -- after the procedure. More major abdominal surgery may be indicated for some patients, depending upon the specific bladder...