Vaginal wall sling for anatomical incontinence and intrinsic sphincter dysfunction: efficacy and outcome analysis

A prospective cohort study was done to determine the efficacy and clinical outcome of a new technique for anterior vaginal wall sling construction to treat urinary incontinence due to intrinsic sphincter dysfunction or anatomical incontinence.

Preoperative evaluation included lateral cystography, video urodynamics, cystoscopy and incontinence staging. Postoperative subjective and objective staging outcome measures were prospectively assigned at predetermined regular intervals by a third party.

Of the patients 95 had intrinsic sphincter dysfunction and 65 had anatomical incontinence. The repair failed in 7% of the 160 patients who had recurrent incontinence during followup and 9% had de novo urgency incontinence. Time to failure comparing patients with intrinsic sphincter dysfunction and anatomical incontinence was modeled using Kaplan-Meier survival curves, and the log rank test showed no significant difference between the groups (p > 0.05). Logistic regression covariates revealed no significant predictive factors for postoperative failures. Preoperative patient age was the only predictive factor for de novo instability (logistic regression model p < 0.05).

Our initial results indicate that the 2 groups are indistinguishable to date based on current clinical and experimental statistics except for time to full recovery of postoperative voiding and incidence of postoperative instability (regression model p < 0.05).