Single-incision sling operations for urinary incontinence in women.

Urinary incontinence has been shown to affect up to 50% of women. Studies in the USA have shown that up to 80% of these women have an element of stress urinary incontinence. This imposes significant health and economic burden on society and the women affected. Colposuspension and now mid-urethral slings have been shown to be effective in treating patients with stress incontinence. However, associated adverse events include bladder and bowel injury, groin pain and haematoma formation. This has led to the development of third-generation single-incision slings, also referred to as mini-slings.It should be noted that TVT-Secur (Gynecare, Bridgewater, NJ, USA) is one type of single-incision sling; it has been withdrawn from the market because of poor results. However, it is one of the most widely studied single-incision slings and was used in several of the trials included in this review. Despite its withdrawal from clinical use, it was decided that data pertaining to this sling should be included in the first iteration of this review, so that level 1a data are available in the literature to confirm its lack of efficacy.