Predicting the number of women who will undergo incontinence and prolapse surgery, 2010 to 2050.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to estimate the number of women who will undergo inpatient and outpatient surgery for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) or pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in the United States from 2010 through 2050.

STUDY DESIGN

Using the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample and the 2006 National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery, we calculated the rates for inpatient and outpatient SUI and POP surgery. We applied the surgery rates to the US Census Bureau population projections from 2010 through 2050.

RESULTS

The total number of women who will undergo SUI surgery will increase 47.2% from 210,700 in 2010 to 310,050 in 2050. Similarly, the total number of women who will have surgery for prolapse will increase from 166,000 in 2010 to 245,970 in 2050.

CONCLUSION

If the surgery rates for pelvic floor disorders remain unchanged, the number of surgeries for urinary incontinence and POP will increase substantially over the next 40 years.