Comparison of Efficacy and Satisfaction between the TVT-SECUR® and MONARC® Procedures for the Treatment of Female Stress Urinary Incontinence

Purpose: The tension-free vaginal tape SECUR® (TVT-S) is a new, minimally invasive sling procedure for treating female stress urinary incontinence (SUI). However, results of comparisons of the TVT-S with the transobturator tape (TOT) sling are lacking. Therefore, we investigated outcome and satisfaction of the TVT-S procedure compared with the TOT procedure.

Materials and methods: We included 64 patients with SUI who underwent the TVT-S (n=31) or TOT (MONARC®, n=33) procedure and were followed up for more than 1 year. The preoperative evaluation included history taking, pelvic examination, consecutive 3-day voiding diary, and urodynamic study including Valsalva leak point pressure. Postoperatively, continence status and subjective patient satisfaction were evaluated. Cure was defined as the absence of any episodes of involuntary urine leakage during stressful activities and a stress cough test.

Results: The TVT-S group (71.0%) showed a slightly lower cure rate than did the MONARC group (84.8%); however, there was no significant difference between the 2 groups (p=0.179). Nine of the patients who underwent the TVT-S showed incontinence postoperatively. Among them, the H approach was used in 7 patients and the U approach was done in 2 patients. Following TVT-S and MONARC, the patients' reported satisfaction was 80.6% and 78.8%, respectively. Patient satisfaction did not differ significantly between the two groups (p=0.854).

Conclusions: Our results showed that the TVT-S and MONARC procedures may be comparable in terms of cure rate and patient satisfaction after more than 1 year of follow-up.