The Novel and Minimally Invasive Treatment Modalities for Female Pelvic Floor Muscle Dysfunction; Beyond the Traditional

Abstract

Pelvic floor dysfunction is a clinical entity that is prevalent amongfemale patients. Determining the exact underlying cause of pelvicfloor dysfunction is difficult, and surgical intervention for this clinicalentity may be challenging. Pelvic floor dysfunction can affect thequality of life of the patient by causing stress urinary incontinence,pelvic organ prolapse, or both. Well-defined surgical treatmentoptions, minimally invasive approaches, and novel techniques for thetreatment of pelvic floor dysfunction have been recently introduced.Here, we evaluated the management options available for patientswith stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. Wesearched Medline and EMBASE databases for relevant articles byusing the keywords “pelvic floor dysfunction,” “minimally invasiveprocedures,” “stress urinary incontinence,” “pelvic organ prolapse,”and “novel techniques”. Traditional treatment options for stressurinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse are beyond thescope of our review. Laparoscopic and robotic surgical treatmentsfor pelvic floor dysfunction continue to evolve and develop. Theseminimally invasive techniques will soon replace open procedures.Alternative novel treatment modalities have also been developed fromnovel human-compatible materials and are emerging as successfultreatments for stress urinary incontinence. The development of thesevarious treatment options has implications for future surgical practicein the field of uro-gynecology.