Transvaginal repair of enterocele

Abstract

The urologist actively involved in the treatment of female genitourinary disease must to be able to recognize and treat various forms of pelvic prolapse. Enterocele is commonly seen in conjunction with stress urinary incontinence and cystocele or it may result from surgery to correct these problems. Many techniques to correct enterocele have been developed, including transvaginal repairs as well as intra-abdominal procedures such as the Moschcowitz technique or colpofixation to the sacrum for enterocele with vault prolapse. Surgical management of enterocele must take into account several factors, including the presence of stress urinary incontinence, rectocele, vaginal vault prolapse, prior hysterectomy and the desire to maintain sexual activity. Based on these considerations we discuss our approach to the transvaginal repair of enterocele. In patients without vault prolapse a simple enterocele repair is performed. If vault prolapse is present, then the condition of the anterior vaginal wall is considered. In patients with a cystocele a vault suspension procedure is performed, which involves simultaneous suspension of the uterosacral-cardinal ligament complex and vaginal vault along with the bladder neck and bladder. There are 2 modifications of this technique depending on the degree of cystocele: the 4-corner vault suspension for grades 2 and 3 cystocele, and the vault suspension with grade 4 cystocele repair. Patients with vault prolapse and no cystocele undergo sacrospinous ligament fixation. In elderly patients who are not sexually active, especially if they are in poor medical condition, partial colpocleisis is considered. In these patients partial colpocleisis was not performed as a primary procedure but it was done later in 3 who failed an initial attempt at repair. All coexisting vaginal pathology is fixed at the time of enterocele repair. A total of 83 patients underwent enterocele repair according to this protocol and 81 were available for followup. Mean followup was 15 months (range 3 to 70). Overall a successful result (no recurrence) was achieved in 70 patients (86%). Success for individual procedures was 40 of 49 (82%) for simple repair, 24 of 25 (96%) for vault suspension and 6 of 7 (86%) for sacrospinous fixation. In all cases vault suspension or sacrospinous fixation was able to restore vaginal depth and axis with minimal or no vaginal shortening.