Abstract Introduction Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) resulting from prostate surgery can have devastating consequences in men’s quality of life. Patient selection is crucial for successful treatment of SUI with urethral sling or artificial urinary sphincter (AUS). The ideal SUI evaluation tool for determining severity and guiding surgical treatment remains unknown. The Male Stress Incontinence Grading Scale (MSIGS) uses a standing cough test to provide a simple, non-invasive assessment of post-prostatectomy SUI severity, and can facilitate procedure selection. However, uncertainty remains as to whether MSIGS underestimates SUI severity if performed with insufficiently full bladder, increasing the risk of treatment failure. Objective We present our sling and AUS outcomes using the MSIGS for selection. We assessed bladder fullness with random bladder scans (BS) at the time of evaluation to determine if emptier bladder carries increased risk of failure. Methods We conducted a retrospective chart review of male patients undergoing sling and AUS placement. MSIGS and BS were documented at initial evaluation. Additional collected data included age, pads per day (PPD) pre- and post-surgery, post-operative MSIGS, and need for revision or conversion. Success and failure groups were defined as the post-operative use of ≤1 PPD or >1 PPD, respectively. Descriptive and comparative statistics were performed using SAS software. Results From April 2017 to September 2021, 40 male patients underwent sling and 43 naïve AUS placement. Average age was 71.9 for slings and 70.3 for AUS. 80/83 had prior prostatic surgery. Average follow up was 12.5 months. 34/40 slings had complete SUI resolution or reduction of pad use to no more than one PPD vs 40/43 of AUS (85 vs 93%, p=0.4). 4 sling patients (10%) had persistence or recurrence of SUI, of whichone patient underwent AUS placement. MSIGS scores were similar between sling success (83% patients grade 0, 3% grade 1, 14% grade 2) and failure groups (67% grade 0, 33% grade 1). 73% of AUS patient mostly had MSIGS scores 3 or 4. BS was available for 35 sling and 25 AUS patients. Average was 18.5cc in the sling failure group (range 17-161) and 38cc in the sling success, (17-161), with 32% of success patients having a BS of 0cc, and 80% of <60cc. Average BS for AUS patients was 45cc (14-224). 10 patients with BS 0 and 7 patients with BS<30cc demonstrated MSIGS 4 on exam. Conclusions MSIGS is a non-invasive, reliable test to assess SUI severity. Our preliminary data suggests that a full bladder at time of assessment is not necessary to accurately select patients for male sling vs AUS, with high rate of success and patient satisfaction. Disclosure No
Read full abstract