Long Term Quality of Life after Tension-Free Vaginal Tape-Obturator Procedure in Women with Stress Urinary Incontinence

Introduction: Stress urinary incontinence represents a common but strongly underestimated health problem that affects women of all ages and severely downgrades their health related quality of life. The transobturator vaginal tape (TVT-O) approach offers long term success rates, while minimizing complications. In this study, we examined quality of life of patients suffering by stress urinary incontinence and investigated whether TVT-O procedure offers considerable benefits in patient’s quality of life after 5 years of placement. Methods and results: Women with confirmed urodynamic stress urinary incontinence that underwent TVT-O procedure were included in this prospective study. Patient’s quality of life was evaluated by using the Greek version of SF-36 preoperatively and 60 months postoperatively. The outcomes demonstrated that incontinence had significant adverse effect in patient’s quality of life. However, TVT-O procedure offers a safe and efficient treatment, substantially improving both physical and mental dimension of women’s health related quality of life (P>0.05). Discussion: Stress urinary incontinence strongly impairs women’s health related quality of life, limiting their physical activities, social function and causing emotionally imbalance. Insertion of tension free vaginal tape reverses symptoms and significantly improves all health indicators associated with patient’s health related quality of life. In our study, we demonstrate that minimal invasive surgery, by using TVT-O procedure is highly effective, in long term, in improving quality of life of women with stress urinary incontinence.