There are many ways to treat incontinence, treatments vary according to the degree and type of the incontinence and invasive surgery is considered to be the last resort when other treatments fail.

However, many different procedures can be performed; a recent study compared the effectiveness of less invasive procedures to traditional open surgery and other surgical approaches.

In total, data from 62 trials involving 7,101 women was collected for analysis, the study was conducted by Cochrane Researchers from The Cochrane Collaboration, a respectful and reliable source of evidence in health care.

After comparing different types of incontinence surgical procedures, researchers concluded that less invasive operations can be as effective as traditional open surgery for incontinence.

Lead researcher, Joseph Ogah from the Leeds University Teaching Hospital in Leeds, said:

"These were only small trials and they varied greatly in quality, but we were able to make comparisons between different types of surgery and we found that minimally invasive sling operations for stress incontinence in women are very effective for this condition."

And concluded:

"However, few of the trials we looked at reported outcomes after one year and therefore the long term efficiency of these procedures requires further investigation. It is also of utmost importance to assess how these procedures impact on women's quality of life, so this needs to be addressed in further studies."

Have you received surgery for stress incontinence? If you would like to share your experience and success, we would be very grateful if you wrote your comments below.