Three-year Outcomes of the Innovative Replacement of Incontinence Surgery Procedure for Treatment of Female Stress Urinary Incontinence: Comparison with Tension-free Vaginal Tape Procedure

Innovative replacement of incontinence surgery (IRIS) is a polypropylene tape that is placed beneath the midurethra to restore urinary continence. We evaluated the long-term efficacy and safety of the IRIS procedure and compared it with tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) for the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence. We included all 66 consecutive women who underwent IRIS (n=34) or TVT (n=32) between February 2002 and April 2003 and followed them up for at least 3 yr postoperatively. The 3-yr success rate was 94.1% for the IRIS and 93.8% for the TVT, and the satisfaction rates were 91.2% and 90.6%, respectively. Intraoperative complications for the IRIS group included 3 cases of bladder perforation, and there were 3 cases of bladder perforation in the TVT group. The postoperative complications for the IRIS group included 2 patients with de novo urgency and one patient with mesh erosion. Three patients with TVT developed de novo urgency. One case of each group showed temporary voiding difficulty. On the basis of our results, the IRIS may be an effective and safe procedure as compared to TVT, with a high success rate and a low complication rate.