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The Review Course in Family Medicine

GUIDELINE ALERT: New Incontinence Updates for Family Physicians

New Canadian and BC Guidelines

A women holding her crotch area as she has Urinary Incontinence

Consider the index patient in your clinic:

A healthy 54-year-old female with bothersome stress urinary incontinence (SUI) while attempting to exercise, in which she requires the use of incontinence pads. No prior SUI surgery, BMI <40, no pelvic floor radiation, no pelvic organ prolapse, not frail.


Recommended for the Index Patient:

  • Cystoscopy if there are other findings (other symptoms i.e. other Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms [LUTS], previous pelvic radiation or procedure history, suspected structural causes, recurrent UTI)

  • Urodynamic studies (UDS) if there are other findings (history of pelvic surgery/radiation, elevated PVR, suspected voiding dysfunction, neurologic conditions of the Lower Urinary Tract [LUT], mixed incontinence, or discrepancy of history and physical)

  • Weight loss 

  • Delay surgery if she is considering bariatric surgery

  • Smoking cessation

  • BOTH Self-directed pelvic floor muscle therapy (PFMT) and group-based supervised and intensive PFMT

  • Pessaries and other vaginal devices for candidates

  • May offer periurethral bulking agents as a less-invasive option to surgery 

  • Mid-urethral sling (vaginal or obturator) unless urethral integrity is impaired

  • Shared decision making to offer appropriate conservative and surgical options to patients who are not done their childbearing 

  • Discuss that sexual function may be affected after SUI surgery

  • Counseling that retention/worsening voiding dysfunction is a possible outcome of SUI surgery


NOT Recommended for the Index Patient

  • Routine cystoscopy 

  • Routine urodynamic studies (UDS)

  • Topical Vaginal estrogen if stress urinary incontinence is the only symptom 

  • Vaginal Laser therapy

  • Reliance on preoperative urodynamic parameters to predict postoperative voiding dysfunction



References 

CUAJ April 2024 Volume 18, Issue 4, 2024 Canadian Urological Association

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