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Urinary incontinence affects 13 million Americans, 85% of whom are women. One in three women experience incontinence and 65 percent of these women recall it began after childbirth.¹
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI), presumed to be the most common type of incontinence, occurs when pelvic muscles supporting the bladder and urethra have been damaged or weakened. Weakened pelvic muscles cannot hold the urethra in its correct position, causing the urethra to lose its seal and allow urine to escape with any movement from the diaphragm that puts pressure on the bladder, such as a sneeze.¹
The annual cost of urinary incontinence in persons 65 or older was $27.8 billion in 1995.² In 1998, the annual direct cost per patient of SUI was $5,642, while the indirect cost is $4,208.3 In addition to the high cost of incontinence for patients and our health care system, the condition is associated with a significant decline in health-related quality of life.
Several different treatment options exist, including Kegel exercises, weights and electrical stimulation to strengthen pelvic muscles. Many women have opted to undergo a minimally invasive procedure to treat their SUI that uses a “sling” made of a special synthetic mesh tape to hold up the urethra. This procedure takes about 30 minutes, is performed under local or general anesthesia and can be done in either hospital outpatient or ambulatory surgery center setting.
Before sling procedures, women usually had to undergo invasive surgery under general anesthesia, called open colposuspension, to relieve them from SUI. Slings have been proven cost-effective and life-improving in studies. Patient satisfaction two years after both sling procedures and colposuspension is high. However, colposuspension patients had significantly higher rates of self-catheterization six months after the procedure, meaning patients required a tube to remove urine from the body. The study also confirms that sling procedure patients have shorter hospital stays and a faster return to normal activities.³
More than one million women have undergone sling procedures worldwide. More than 80 percent were completely dry and 16.3 percent were significantly improved after the procedure.¹

GYNECARE. “Learn more about stress urinary incontinence.” http://www.beatsui.com/about.htm (28 April 2006).
Wagner TH, Hu TW. “Economic Costs of Urinary Incontinence in 1995.” Urology 51(3) (1998):355-361.
Ward KL, Hilton P. “Aprospective multicenter randomized trial of tension-free vaginal tape and colposuspension for primary urodynamic stress incontinence: two-year follow-up.” Am J of Obstetrics and Gynecology 190(2) (2004):324-31.