Pubovaginal fascial sling for the treatment of complicated stress urinary incontinence

We reviewed retrospectively 67 consecutive women with complicated stress incontinence who underwent a pubovaginal fascial sling procedure by a single surgeon. A detailed micturition questionnaire was completed at the last followup, which ranged from 1 to 8 years, with a mean of 3.5 years. Postoperatively, 82% of the women claimed that they were never incontinent and never wore pads, while 9% were incontinent less often than once per 2 weeks and 9% 9% continued to have troublesome incontinence on a daily basis. Only 2 of these women had persistent stress incontinence; the remainder (5) had urge incontinence. In 6 patients with a neurogenic bladder postoperative urinary retention was expected and they were treated with intermittent self-catheterization. Two patients had urethral obstruction by the sling and required prolonged (probably permanent) intermittent self-catheterization.