Incontinence Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Incontinence, including details on urinary incontinence, bladder control, treatment, causes.

One-year follow-up of tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) and trans-obturator suburethral tape from inside to outside (TVT-O) for surgical treatment of female stress urinary incontinence: a prospective randomised trial.

Zullo MA, Plotti F, Calcagno M, Marullo E, Palaia I, Bellati F, Basile S, Muzii L, Angioli R, Panici PB

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Rome Campus Bio-medico, Via Longoni 83, 00155 Rome, Italy. m.zullo@unicampus.it

OBJECTIVES: To compare tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) and trans-obturator suburethral tape from inside to outside (TVT-O) for surgical treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) for complications (primary end point) and success rate (secondary end point). METHODS: Seventy-two consecutive patients, with a mean age of 53.2 yr (range: 38-69 yr) and affected by SUI, were included in this randomised controlled trial. After preoperative assessment, patients were randomly allocated to the TVT or TVT-O procedure. Operative time, perioperative complications, and hospital stay were prospectively recorded. Cure of SUI was defined as no leakage of urine during the stress test at urodynamic testing at the 12-mo evaluation. The Wilcoxon signed rank sum test, Mann-Whitney U test, McNemar test, and Fisher exact test were used to verify statistical significance, set at p<0.05. RESULTS: All patients were evaluable at the 12-mo follow-up. The characteristics of patients were well balanced between groups after randomisation. The mean operative time was significantly shorter in the TVT-O group. Perioperative complications were significantly more common after the retropubic approach (5% and 27% in TVT-O and TVT groups, respectively, p<0.04). The groups did not differ significantly in intraoperative blood loss, hospital stays, and time to return to normal activities. Sixty-five patients (90%) were successfully treated for SUI 12 mo after the operation (89% and 91% for TVT-O and TVT groups, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Both techniques appear to be equally effective in the surgical treatment of SUI. However, TVT-O had a shorter operative time and lower overall perioperative complication rate.

Published 26 March 2007 in Eur Urol, 51(5): 1376-82; discussion 1383-4.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Incontinence Research Today. All Rights Reserved.