Residual urinary Incontinence after Successful Repair of Obstetric Fistula

Abstract

Introduction:Obstetric fistula surgery presents many challenges. The injury usually occurs in resource-poor areas and is thus managed in hospitals that are themselves poorly resourced. The pathology is complex and extensive, affecting any and sometimes all parts of the lower urinary tract. The long obstructed labour and resulting ischemia throughout the pelvis can destroy all the normal mechanisms for urinary continence. 1 It is one thing to be able to close the defect and try to restore normal anatomy, but it is quite another thing altogether to obtain a functional closure, ensuring normal continence. There are varied reports about the extent of incontinence after fistula surgery, from 8% 1 to more widely accepted figures of 18-33%, 2 even up to 47% in an unpublished survey performed in the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in 2003. As with all things, it depends on how closely a fistula surgeon look for the problem. In the early work by Kelly and Kwast, 1 the figure was the number of women returning to the hospital with continuing incontinence despite a closed fistula. It is likely that many women would have remained at home with mild incontinence. The figures of 18-33% had accepted way of looking for incontinence including a basic set of structured questions ranging from'are you wet with cough or heavy activity? 'are you leaking urine involuntarily when lying?. 2 A cough examination with a full bladder was used to confirm the diagnosis.The exact nature of the incontinence is often complex and only a handful of studies have investigated the nature of the pathology. One study 3 of 22 women with severe incontinence following fistula closure underwent urodynamic assessment: 41% had genuine stress incontinence (GSI); 14% had GSI and poor Residual urinary Incontinence after SuccessfulRepair of Obstetric Fistula

Non-Fistulous Complications of Prolonged Obstructed Labour among Obstetric Fistula Patients in Southern Nigeria

“…The proportion of women with UTI is much higher than 26.2% reported in Sokoto [16], but similar to findings of 52.8% and 58.1% in Ethiopia [28] [29]. Circumferential defect, urethral involvement and extensive vaginal scarring predict poor prognosis of surgical outcomes of obstetric fistula repair [30] [31].…”