Long-term outcomes of TVT and IVS operations for treatment of female stress urinary incontinence: monofilament vs. multifilament polypropylene tape.

Introduction And Hypothesis: We compared cure rates of tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) with intravaginal slingplasty (IVS) and evaluated changes in cure rates over time.

Methods: One hundred three underwent TVT and 213 underwent IVS. Follow-ups were done at 3 months, 1 year, and 5 years.

Results: The following results were found: objective cure for TVT 98-95-94% vs. IVS 86-86-80% (p < 0.03); subjective cure for TVT 82-79-74% vs. IVS 79-81-71% (NS). In IVS, a significant decline in subjective cure took place. Vaginal erosions were found in 11.8% of women in the IVS group and none in the TVT group.

Conclusions: TVT is an effective and stable treatment, whereas IVS has a significant inferior objective cure rate, and a significant decline in subjective cure rate occurred over time. A high rate of vaginal erosions was found in the IVS group. We cannot recommend the use of multifilament polypropylene tape (IVS) for surgical treatment of stress urinary incontinence.