The impact of vaginal cone therapy on stress urinary incontinence compared with transobturator tape.

Objective: To emphasize the efficiency of vaginal cone (VC) therapy in stress urinary incontinence (SUI) through a comparison with transobturator tape (TOT).

Materials And Methods: A prospective randomized controlled study was conducted at the Etlik Zübeyde Hanım Maternity and Women Hospital during a one year study period. Forty women were allocated into two equal groups; those treated with VCs for a 3 month period, and women who underwent TOT procedures. These women were followed up at 6 weeks and 6 months after the treatments. Subjective cure was assessed using Wagner's Quality of Life Questionnaire. Objective cure was evaluated through a cough stress and pad test results.

Results: Maternal demographic features were comparable among groups. We observed improvement in pad weight test among groups when compared with the pretreatment state (p=0.015, p=0.005). Although the subjective cure rate was similar in both groups at the 6 week and 6 month follow up (65% vs. 75%; 75% vs. 80%) (p>0.05), the objective cure rate was significantly higher in the TOT group than in the VC group, as expected (10% vs. 80%; 30% vs. 75%) (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The main treatment of SUI is surgery; however, VC could be offered as an alternative treatment for women who refuse surgery, those at high risk for surgery or it could be used temporarily before surgery.