[Is Teflon treatment of female urinary incontinence still justified?].

An analysis is made in this paper of therapeutic results obtained at Charité Berlin from 14 cases of pure stress incontinence and 6 cases of combined stress-urge incontinence, with reference being made to general benefits and setbacks of transurethral Teflon injection to cope with female urinary incontinence. Five women underwent teflon therapy as the first operation performed on them. Seven women had had one operation before and the rest more than one. Continence was restored in 6 patients (30 per cent), and 3 patients (15 per cent) were improved. The presurgical situation was of minor influence. The definite result was outlined as early as three months from surgery. Urodynamically, Teflon had a favourable impact primarily on functional urethral length and on the stress quotient. However, elevation of the bladder base was radiographically detectable in less numerous cases. Only partial agreement was found to exist between objectivated improvement and subjectively perceived and reported therapeutic results, with falsely positive and falsely negative findings occurring with equal frequency. Micturition was insubstantially impaired by Teflon. However, it should be adopted as a matter of principle that in future teflon should no longer be applied to women for urinary incontinence unless conservative therapy or other surgical incontinence techniques must be skipped for whatever reasons and unless no more effective sphincter substitute is available.