A Multicenter Clinical Safety Assessment of Polypropylene Transvaginal Mesh in Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery

Pelvic organ prolapse is characterized by a lack of pelvic floor support causing the pelvic organs and vaginal walls to protrude. For decades, suture repair techniques have been the primary choice of surgical treatment when indicated.

The notion of reinforcing pelvic floor defects using biomaterial implants is not an exclusively contemporary idea. Traditional surgical techniques are frequently associated with unsatisfying anatomical recurrence rates and over the years sporadic attempts have been made to introduce novel surgical techniques using a variety of biomaterials as support with varying success. It is plausible that inherently weak, or damaged, pelvic floor supportive tissues need to be reinforced by a permanent support to avoid the high rates of recurrences commonly described using traditional techniques. However, use of biomaterials in pelvic reconstructive surgery has become widespread in just a few years despite a lack of clinical safety data, or compelling clinical evidence demonstrating that it improves outcomes compared to traditional suture techniques.

It is likely that biomaterials need to be "anchored" in tissues not afflicted by the disease, in order to provide the intended pelvic floor support. This has given rise to transvaginal surgical techniques using a transobturator approach passing the mesh through the arcus tendineous fascia pelvis, or the sacrospinous ligaments through a transgluteal approach. Already commercially available implant materials are in need of patient safety documentation, both when considering the surgical techniques by which these materials are placed in the body as well as the actual materials. Complication rates and perioperative morbidity using these surgical routes in pelvic organ prolapse surgery are generally unknown.

The aim of the present study was to assess the long term morbidity, and describe the complications, associated with transvaginal mesh repair of pelvic organ prolapse using the PROLIFT®-system.