Complications from the placement of a tension-free suburethral sling using the transobturator and retropubic methods for treatment of female urinary incontinence.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of our study was to retrospectively analyze surgical complications arising from the collocation of suburethral mesh in the lower urinary tract, using both the transobturator and retropubic methods.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

During the period between November 2002 and June 2011, we retrospectively studied 190 patients that were treated for stress urinary incontinence using a tension-free suburethral sling. 50 patients were treated using the retropubic route (SPARC®), and 140 patients were treated using a transobturator (MONARC®).

RESULTS

In total, 16.57% of the patients presented with intraoperative, immediate postoperative or later postoperative complications. We observed a higher rate of complications with patients who were operated on retropubically (26%) than with patients who were operated on using the transobturator method (12%).

CONCLUSIONS

The rate of complications for our study was low, and was even lower in the case of transobturator tape. Thus, we usually used transobturator tape in the treatment of stress incontinence.