Research Trends in Stem Cell Therapy for Stress Urinary Incontinence from 2000 to 2025: A Bibliometric Analysis

Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI), the most prevalent type of urinary incontinence, has received increased attention from researchers because of its significant impact on daily life. In addition to conventional treatments, stem cell therapy is increasingly being recommended for SUI treatment. In this study, we perform a bibliometric analysis of published studies on the use of stem cell therapy for SUI treatment.

To collect and quantitatively evaluate the relevant literature in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), PubMed, and Scopus databases, we retrieved studies published from 2000 to 2025 and used CiteSpace for visual analysis. Microsoft Office Excel 2019 was used to sort the data and generate tables.

A total of 316 articles were retrieved on April 01, 2025, after data merging. The annual number of publications presented an increasing trend initially, but then decreased. The keywords "stress urinary incontinence", "urinary incontinence", "cell therapy", "adipose-derived stem cell", and "regenerative medicine" were the top five keywords used in the co-occurrence analysis. In terms of publication region, the USA has the largest number of publications, followed by China. Case Western Reserve University and Wake Forest University were the top 2 institutions according to the institution map. Michael B. Chancellor was the most productive author, with 14 publications. J Urology and Urology were the top 2 cited journals, with 185 and 163 articles.

The results revealed the growing acceptance of stem cell therapy for SUI. This study provides researchers with an overview of the literature and suggests future research directions.