Clinical Trial Identifies Womens Benefit from Vaginal Mesh Surgery

Emerging research seems to suggest that women affected by vaginal prolapsed might get to enjoy reprieve from their conditions through the new procedure referred to as the vaginal mesh surgery. Though there has been a lot of positive progress that the condition’s treatment brings about, there has also be sharp criticism from the way the procedure is done and a lot of lawsuits have been filed against the procedure. To understand all the details, it is good to have a good understanding of all the conditions involved.

What is vaginal Prolapse?

Vaginal prolapsed is a condition caused by the continued weakening of different tissues within the pelvis of a woman and the vaginal canal tends to protrude through the vaginal opening. Statistics from the CDC indicate that about 20 – 30% of the American population face this problem. Due to this problem, there has been a lot of interest in bringing about a treatment to the condition which makes a lot of women to suffer in silence.

Alternative causes of Action for patients with vaginal prolapse

There are many alternative causes of action which can be used to treat vaginal prolapse. One of these methods involves surgery. The surgery is in most times invasive and it does not offer a guarantee that the problem will not reoccur. In fact, a lot of reoccurrence of the condition has been reported, even with surgery being done. In this surgery referred to as sacrospinous vaginal colpopexy, the vagina is attached to the surrounding tissue in the abdomen so that it is held in place. Repeat surgeries are caused by the continued weakening of the attachment sites, causing prolapse. The other option is vaginal mesh surgery.

What is Vaginal Mesh Surgery?

As the name denotes, Vaginal Mesh Surgery involves the surgical insertion of a mesh inside the vagina so as to keep the vagina in place. This procedure has been shown to be far more effective than plain surgery that reattached the vagina to surrounding abdominal tissue. The results of a study done on patients who undertook the study has been published in Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology, giving guidelines on persons who ought to go for the surgery and those who should not. Even with its success, vaginal mesh surgery seems to have gathered a lot of opposition.

Though there is evidence to support that recurrence rates are lower when vaginal mesh surgery is used, there has also been a significant concern that the surgery could cause a lot of complications in the future. This is the reason why this surgery is recommended to only women who have a high risk of vaginal prolapse recurrence as opposed to all women with vaginal prolapsed.

Contributing factors to vaginal prolapse

One of the biggest contributing factors to the cause of the vaginal and pelvic floor prolapse is a condition referred to as levatoir avulsion, a condition that may continue to reoccur even after surgery. The main cause of levatoir avulsion is vaginal childbirth. During vaginal child birth, injury may be caused to the pelvic floor muscles which cause their erosion in time, causing vaginal prolapse.

Research performed on vaginal prolapse

Researchers from Charles University and General University Hospital located in Prague undertook an experiment to compare efficacy of alternatives between vaginal mesh surgery as well as sacrospinous vaginal colpopexy in patients who had levator avulsion and post-hysterectomy prolapsed, both conditions which were diagnosed through ultrasound imaging.

In the clinical trial, 70 women were used whereby 36 underwent the vaginal mesh surgery while 34 went for sacrospinous vaginal colpopexy. After the patients’ surgeries, a follow-up was done a year later. An ultrasound examination was carried out to show whether there was any prolapsed that had occurred. Of the patients that had gone for vaginal mesh surgery, only one prolapsed had occurred, accounting for 2.8% of prolapsed. In the women who went for sacrospinous vaginal colpopexy, there were 21 recurrences, accounting for a 61.8% prolapsed rate. In as much as the sample sizes were small, there is no doubt that vaginal mesh surgery does in fact help to prevent prolapses.

The researchers said that their success lay in performing a thorough evaluation of the patients through ultrasound imaging. In so doing, it is easier to pick out the women who most need vaginal mesh surgery as opposed to recommending the surgery to all women who come with the condition. This reduces the risk of requiring future surgeries and the mental strain and financial strain that comes with repeated surgeries as well. This brings about a situation where the patients and doctors come to be direct winners, all which lie in both doctor and patient understanding the various options that can be pursued and their success rates.