Transvaginal repair of vault prolapse: a review

To provide a critical assessment of the published literature on transvaginal reconstructive techniques used to suspend a prolapsed vaginal vault.

A Medline data base search and a bibliographic review of the relevant articles were conducted to identify all English-language articles on repair of vaginal vault prolapse.

Our literature search identified 34 articles published in peer-review journals and one article reported in another format, describing five different techniques.

The size of each study population, modifications of the original surgical technique, complications, and results were tabulated and summarized for each surgical approach. Only sacrospinous ligament vaginal vault suspension and endopelvic fascia vaginal vault fixation had a sufficient number of cases to allow an informative evaluation of their effectiveness in managing vaginal vault prolapse. Of the 1229 patients who had undergone sacrospinous ligament suspension, 1062 were available for varying periods of follow-up; 193 (18%) of these developed recurrent pelvic relaxation--including 32 vaginal vault eversions, 81 anterior vaginal wall defects, 24 posterior vaginal wall prolapses, and 56 support defects at unspecified or multiple sites. Of the 367 patients who had undergone endopelvic fascia vaginal vault fixation, 322 were available for follow-up ranging from 1 to 12 years; 34 (11%) of these patients developed recurrent pelvic relaxation including nine vaginal vault prolapses, two anterior vaginal wall defects, 11 posterior vaginal wall relaxations, and 12 support defects at unspecified or multiple sites.

Published experience suggests that sacrospinous ligament suspension and endopelvic fascia fixation are effective in managing vaginal vault prolapse. Because of study limitations--including an absence of standardized outcome evaluation, relatively short follow-up periods, a substantial number of patients lost to follow-up, concomitant surgical procedures, and failure to assess visceral and sexual functions--the true efficacy of these two procedures remains inconclusive.