Purpose: The tension-free vaginal tape procedure is an increasingly popular
choice for treating female urinary stress incontinence. This ongoing, pros
pective, open label study presents the results of tension-free vaginal tape
surgery at 1 year in women who have previously undergone unsuccessful stre
ss incontinence surgery.
Materials and Methods: A total of 67 women with previous failed surgery for
stress urinary incontinence underwent the tension-free vaginal tape proced
ure. Treatment outcome was categorized as cure, significant improvement or
failure based on cystometry findings and urinary pad loss results at 3 mont
hs of followup, and on subjective questioning at 3 months and 1 year of fol
lowup.
Results: At 12 months 54 women (81%) were cured, 4 (6%) were significantly
improved and 9 (13%) were no better. No serious morbidity was noted after t
he procedure.
Conclusions: The tension-free vaginal tape procedure provides the prospect
of a success rate similar to that of a conventional sling procedure in pati
ents with previous failed surgery. It has a low rate of operative complicat
ions and postoperative morbidity.