The efficacy and safety comparison of surgical treatments for stress urinary incontinence: A network meta‐analysis

Aims Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common problem worldwide. Mainstream surgical procedures include tension‐free vaginal tape (TVT), transobturator tape (TOT), tension‐free vaginal tape‐obturator (TVT‐O), tension‐free vaginal tape SECUR (TVT‐S), and adjustable single‐incision sling (Ajust). The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy and safety of these surgical procedures and assess which surgery is most optimal for SUI by adopting a network meta‐analysis (NMA). Methods Electronic databases including PubMed, Cochrance Library, and Embase database were researched systematically, until March 21, 2017. The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the efficacy and safety of TVT, TOT, TVT‐O, TVT‐S, and Ajust were identified. The studies were included in the analysis when met the predefined inclusion criteria. After demographic and outcome data extraction, a network meta‐analysis was conducted with software R 3.3.2 and STATA 14.0. Objective cure rate, subjective cure rate, postoperative complication rate, bladder perforation, tape erosion, urinary retention, and postoperative pain were considered as outcomes, and the outcomes were displayed as odds ratios (ORs) and 95% credible intervals (CrI). The consistency of direct and indirect evidence was assessed by node splitting. The ranks based on probabilities of intervention for the different endpoints were performed. Results Fourty‐five RCTs with 7295 participants were analyzed. The NMA results revealed that, TVT, TOT, and Ajust had a higher objective cure rate than TVT‐O and TVT‐S (TVT‐O: OR = 0.76, 95%CI [0.61, 0.94]; TVT‐S: OR = 0.41, 95%CI [0.28, 0.60]). TVT, TOT, and TVT‐O had a superior subjective cure rate than TVT‐S and Ajust (Ajust: OR = 0.45, 95%CI [0.20, 0.91]; TVT‐S: OR = 0.29, 95%CI [0.15, 0.56]). With TVT as the reference, TVT‐S had a statistically lower postoperative complication rate (TVT‐S: OR = 0.39, 95%CI [0.16, 0.89]). TVT‐O, TVT‐S, and TOT had a significantly lower bladder perforation rate (TOT: OR = 0.076, 95%CI [0.0060, 0.37]; TVT‐O: OR = 4.1e‐17, 95%CI [6.1e‐48, 0.0032]; TVT‐S: OR = 3.8e‐17, 95%CI [1.8e‐48, 0.0052]). There were no obvious differences between the five treatments for tape erosion. TVT‐O exhibited a less postoperative retention (TVT‐O: OR = 0.35, 95%CI [0.16, 0.74]). Probabilities of ranking results indicated that TOT was the treatment with best ranking in efficacy and a relatively high safety. Conclusions Our study recommend TOT as the optimal regimen for SUI with high efficacy and moderate safety when compared with TVT, TVT‐O, TVT‐S, and Ajust interventions. However, with the limitation of our study, additional high‐quality studies are needed to further evaluate the outcomes.