The effectiveness of the treatment of urinary incontinence with erbium laser and CO²: An integrative review

Abstract

Urinary incontinence is one of the main symptoms that affect women who suffer from the so-called Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause. This symptom tends to worsen with increasing age and low amount of the hormone estrogen, and should therefore be treated appropriately. Laser therapy, both with the erbium laser (Er-YAG) and the CO² laser, are new modalities studied for the treatment of this symptom, which is a safe and totally outpatient procedure. Thus, this integrative literature review aimed to discuss and compare the effectiveness of each of these lasers in the treatment of urinary incontinence. For this, 17 original articles were used, in the period from 2015 to 2022, searched in the Virtual Health Library (VHL) and PubMed platforms, through the use of descriptors and Boolean operator "and". Through the analysis of such studies, it was possible to verify that with the use of both lasers, there was an increase in collagen production, improvement in vascularization with the production of new blood vessels and microscopic reorganization of the vaginal structure. In addition, age and BMI have also become important factors for the success of this treatment. Therefore, it can be concluded, both through a microscopic analysis and through questionnaires that evaluated the degrees of urinary incontinence, that this new treatment is promising, since it was evident the improvement of patients suffering from urinary incontinence.