Continence and complications rates after male slings as primary surgery for post-prostatectomy incontinence: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES to analyze continence and complications rates after male slings as first line surgical treatment, in order to improve patient counseling for the management of SUI postprostatectomy. METHOD A MedLine search using specified search terms was done on January 23, 2012. This research rendered 160 records. RESULTS No controlled trial was available for analysis. The majority of papers dealing with out- come and complications came from a few centres. At a median follow-up of 15 months the pooled cure rates for all kinds of slings was 77.4; in the AdVance group the pooled cure rates was 72.5%; in the InVance group it was 74.2% while in the Remeex group it was 84.3%. CONCLUSIONS Only a few number observational studies addressed review selection criteria. The pooled overall cure rates is high but there are no data concerning reliable pre- and postoperative prognostic factors affecting treatment failure and complications rates, thus it is not possible to have suitable criteria for a better patient selection. The statistically pooled results obtained should be interpreted with caution because of several limitations due to several study selection limitations: observational study design, few number of analysed studies, heterogeneity, lack of outcome definition and standardisation, between-study variability, high risk of bias.