The use of the pessary test in preoperative assessment of women with severe genital prolapse

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Abstract

Objective

To investigate whether a preoperative pessary test could be used to identify patients with occult stress incontinence and if simultaneous anti-incontinence surgery with a midurethral sling could prevent postoperative incontinence.

Study design

Eighty-two patients with a positive pessary test and severe genital prolapse participated in the study: 43 patients underwent prolapse surgery and transobturator tension-free vaginal tape (TVT-O) insertion and 39 patients underwent prolapse surgery only.

Results

The objective cure rate for TVT-O and prolapse surgery was 90.7% at three months follow up and 88.4% at two years follow up. The objective cure rate for prolapse surgery only was 74.4% at three months and 58.9% at two years follow up.

Conclusion

The pessary test can be used preoperatively in patients with significant genitourinary prolapse to identify those with occult stress urinary incontinence. The TVT-O procedure in this context could be a useful optional procedure as it appears to be very effective and safe in patients with occult stress incontinence.

Introduction

It is well accepted that genitourinary prolapse, by distorting the normal anatomical relationships between pelvic organs and the lower urinary tract, can conceal occult urinary incontinence. More precisely it is thought that urethral kinking or increased urethral resistance, due to the prolapse, can mask underlying urinary stress incontinence. Once the genitourinary prolapse has been surgically reduced, the urinary incontinence may become clinically evident [1]. Several studies have investigated the role of the pessary test during urodynamics in patients scheduled for prolapse surgery [2], [3], [4]. The rationale behind the pessary test is to simulate the position that the bladder/bladder neck/fascia will occupy after the prolapse surgery. If there is leakage during the simulation (pessary positive patients) then a simultaneous anti-incontinence procedure could be an option [5]. Jha et al. [6] reported that pessary testing changed the management in 33% of patients.

This prospective study was undertaken in order to investigate whether a positive pessary test during preoperative urodynamics could be used to predict the need for an anti-incontinence procedure in patients with occult stress incontinence scheduled for prolapse surgery and whether the concomitant insertion of a transobturator tension-free vaginal tape (TVT-O) in these patients would be effective in preventing the occurrence of overt postoperative stress urinary incontinence.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

We prospectively recruited women with stage III and IV urogenital prolapse according to the International Continence Society (ICS) classification [7] with no symptoms of urinary incontinence and a positive pessary test (occult incontinence present). The pessary size was chosen with the patient in the lithotomy position and the examiner's index and middle fingers placed at the level of posterior vaginal fornix, and measuring the distance in centimeters from the posterior vaginal fornix (PVF) to

Results

There were no differences in the demographic and clinical data between the groups (Table 1). The urodynamic parameters for patients of group 1 and group 2 are given in Table 2. There were no statistically significant differences concerning first desire, postvoid residual, maximum cystometric capacity, maximum flow rate, and maximum urethral closure pressure. In the TVT-O treated group, 90.7% of the patients had no signs of urodynamic stress incontinence at three months and 86% of patients were

Comments

Urogenital prolapse is a common condition and one of the major reasons for gynecologic surgery. It has been reported that up to 11–22% [9] of patients with prolapse develop postoperative incontinence following corrective surgery. Occult urinary stress incontinence has been reported to occur in 36–80% of patients with severe prolapse [10]. Diagnosis of occult incontinence is made by stress tests during urodynamics. The sensitivity and specificity of various stress tests (pessary, swab, speculum

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the assistant professor Dr. D. Rizos for his valuable statistical advice.

References (19)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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