Commentary on “Balancing the possibility of needing a future incontinence procedure versus a future urethral sling revision surgery—a tradeoff analysis for continent women undergoing pelvic organ prolapse surgery”

Excerpt

This study [1] involved assessing nonpublic data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) for the years 2005–2011. All women who underwent vaginal pelvic organ prolapse (POP) surgery during the study period were identified. As it was not possible to accurately identify a woman’s preoperative continence status, the authors created two cohorts to compare the possible outcomes of POP surgery with or without a prophylactic sling procedure. The first cohort consisted of women who had a POP repair with a concurrent sling procedure (POP + sling), whereas the second cohort consisted of women who had undergone a POP repair without a concomitant stress urinary incontinence procedure (POP repair only). The primary outcome was a repeat surgical procedure for either a sling-related complication in the POP repair + sling group or a subsequent stress urinary incontinence procedure in the POP repair-only group. The authors defined surgery for a complication related to a sling procedure as any surgery with both a diagnosis and procedure related to sling revision. …