Tension-free vaginal tape for surgical treatment of stress urinary incontinence: two years follow-up.

Abstract

The objective was to study prospectively the effectiveness of tension-free vaginal tape as an ambulatory and minimal invasive operation for the treatment of female stress incontinence. The tension-free vaginal tape procedure was performed in 25 patients with genuine stress incontinence and they were followed for a 2-year period. All patients were diagnosed with urodynamics to have genuine stress incontinence. Pad tests, cough stress test and quality-of-life assessments were carried out in all patients, both preoperatively and postoperatively. The majority of the women were discharged the morning after the surgical procedure. Twenty of 25 (80%) patients were found to be cured 2 years after the operation. The vaginal tape was spontaneously dropped out from the vagina in one patient 2 weeks after the procedure. We did not see such a complication in previous studies. We conclude that the tension-free vaginal tape procedure is both a safe and effective method to cure genuine female stress incontinence. Furthermore, it can be performed as an ambulatory procedure under local anesthesia with a short operative time.