Measurement of transurethral bladder neck displacement during tension-free vaginal tape procedure

The rigid catheter guide is used during the tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) procedure to direct the bladder neck away from the retropubic passage of the sling arm. Our aim was to measure, using transperineal ultrasound, the amount of bladder neck displacement by the rigid catheter guide during TVT placement.

This is a prospective cohort of 28 patients undergoing the TVT procedure, with or without concomitant pelvic organ prolapse repair. Spearman's correlation was used to analyze the bladder neck displacement from the midline.

The median right-sided bladder neck displacement distance was 1.4 cm (0.6-2.0), and the median left-sided bladder neck displacement distance was 1.4 cm (0.8-2.0). The overall perforation rate was 14% (4/28).

Bladder neck displacement with the Mandarin guide results in ~1.4 cm of lateral movement.