Surgical treatment of stress incontinence

Stress incontinence is a common problem in women, which if left untreated may cause significant psychological distress. Various conservative and surgical therapeutic options are available to alleviate this problem. Where conservative treatment has failed, surgical correction is indicated. There are over a hundred surgical procedures that have been described to address stress incontinence. Of these, the Burch colposuspension is accepted as the ‘gold standard’ for treatment. However, there are newer and less minimally invasive techniques available which have been shown to have comparable results to colposuspension. This article reviews past and current surgical procedures for the correction of stress incontinence in terms of continence outcome, peri-operative morbidity, and post-operative sequelae.