Surgical treatment of urinary stress incontinence nowadays

Sonata Barilienė, Rosita Aniulienė

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Key words: female urinary stress incontinence; operative urogynecology, minimal invasive surgery.

Summary. There are various surgical methods for the treatment of female urinary stress incontinence. According to the opinion of American Association of Urologists, anterior colpoplasty is supposed to be the least effective for the long-term treatment out of four surgical treatment categories (anterior colpoplasty, suburethral sling, colposuspension, and long-needle sling). Nowadays, the open retropubic colposuspension (Burch operation) is considered the most effective and long-term treatment of the female urinary stress incontinence. A first-year postsurgical effectiveness is 85–90% for this operation. Tension-free vaginal tape (suburethral sling) operations are considered as much effective as the above-mentioned surgeries and tend to be very perspective. However, these operations require to be evaluated for their long-term systematic results.

Correspondence to S. Barilienė, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: bariliene.sonata@takas.lt

Received 15 March 2006, accepted 28 November 2006