True incidence of vaginal vault prolapse - Thirteen years of experience

OBJECTIVE: To assess the true incidence of vaginal vault prolapse after hys terectomy. STUDY DESIGN: The records of 2,670 patients who had undergone hysterectomy between 1983 and 1987 were reviewed. From this population, 448 patients wer e selected for follow-up study. The mean follow-up phase was 11 years (rang e, 9-13). Patients were divided into two groups according to the presence o r the absence of genital prolapse at hysterectomy. Pelvic examination was p erformed in order to identify the presence of vault prolapse. Pelvic suppor t was assessed using Baden and Walker's "halfway description." RESULTS: Five of the 2,670 patients who had undergone hysterectomy at our i nstitution returned on their own initiative for surgical correction of vaul t prolapse. Using the modalities in the literature, the incidence of vault prolapse was 0.4%. Instead, on pelvic examination, the incidence of vault p rolapse was 4.4% (20 patients in a group of 448). Fourteen of the 20 with v ault prolapse had previously undergone vaginal hysterectomy for genital pro lapse: six had had abdominal hysterectomy for benign disease, excluding gen ital prolapse. Therefore, the incidence of vaginal vault prolapse was 11.6% (14/120 patients) when hysterectomy had been performed for genital prolaps e and 1.8% (6/328) when hysterectomy had been performed for other benign di seases. In the latter group (328 patients), all the cases of vault prolapse developed after abdominal hysterectomy: the incidence was 2% (6/308 patien ts); no case (0/20 patients) of vault prolapse developed after vaginal hyst erectomy that had been performed on patients without genital prolapse. The primary risk factor for vaginal vault prolapse in this study, was obesity. Obese subjects were significantly more susceptible to developing the condit ion when compared to nonobese (P<.001). CONCLUSION: Our data show that there is a low incidence of vaginal vault pr olapse when hysterectomy is performed in the absence of defects in pelvic s upport. A comparison of our method and those described in the literature to determine the incidence of vaginal vault prolapse showed that this event i s often underevaluated if long-term follow-up after hysterectomy is not car ried out.