Repeat surgical intervention for stress urinary incontinence after a failed mid urethral sling

Introduction — We determined the incidence of stress urinary incontinence surgery performed after mid urethral sling procedures and the impact of physician volume on mid urethral sling failure.

Methods — Administrative data were used to identify all women who underwent a mid urethral sling procedure in Ontario, Canada between 2002 and 2013. The primary outcome was subsequent stress urinary incontinence surgery. The primary exposure was surgeon mid urethral sling case volume with high volume defined as greater than the 75th percentile.

Results — A total of 59,556 women with a median age of 52 years (IQR 45–63) received a mid urethral sling, of whom 3.3% underwent additional stress urinary incontinence operations. The most common secondary surgery was a repeat mid urethral sling in 78.3% of cases and a pubovaginal sling in 5.8%. The cumulative incidence of repeat stress urinary incontinence surgery at 10 years of followup was 5.2% (95% CI 4.9–5.5). On multivariable survival analysis the effect of surgeon mid urethral sling volume on subsequent stress urinary incontinence surgery was nonsignificant (HR 0.89, 95% CI 0.76–1.03). Younger patient age, lower comorbidity and simultaneous hysterectomy decreased the hazard of future stress urinary incontinence surgery. In this cohort 1,425 women (2.4%) required surgical revision or removal of the initial mid urethral sling, of whom 215 (15%) underwent a simultaneous or subsequent incontinence procedure. The most common procedure was still a mesh sling, which was placed in 159 women (74.0%).

Conclusions — Secondary stress urinary incontinence surgery after mid urethral sling placement was observed in 3.3% of women. The majority of women with recurrent incontinence were treated with a repeat mid urethral sling. There is a nonsignificant trend toward higher mid urethral sling provider volume being correlated with a reduced risk of future stress urinary incontinence surgery.