Purpose: The American Urological Association convened the Female Stress Urinary Incontinence Clinical Guidelines Panel to analyze the literature regarding surgical procedures for treating stress urinary incontinence in the otherwise healthy female subject and to make practice recommendations based on the treatment outcomes data.
Materials and methods: The panel searched the MEDLINE data base for all articles through 1993 on surgical treatment of female stress urinary incontinence. Outcomes data were extracted from articles accepted after panel review. The data were then meta-analyzed to produce outcome estimates for alternative surgical procedures.
Results: The data indicate that after 48 months retropubic suspensions and slings appear to be more efficacious than transvaginal suspensions, and also more efficacious than anterior repairs. The literature suggests higher complication rates when synthetic materials are used for slings.
Conclusions: The panel found sufficient acceptable long-term outcomes data (longer than 48 months) to conclude that surgical treatment of female stress urinary incontinence is effective, offering a long-term cure in a significant percentage of women. The evidence supports surgery as initial therapy and as a secondary form of therapy after failure of other treatments for stress urinary incontinence. Retropubic suspensions and slings are the most efficacious procedures for long-term success (based on cure/dry rates). However, in the panel's opinion retropubic suspensions and sling procedures are associated with slightly higher complication rates, including longer convalescence and postoperative voiding dysfunction.