Incidence of recurrent pelvic organ prolapse 10 years following primary surgical management: a retrospective cohort study

Risk factors for POP include age, BMI, parity, family history of POP, levator avulsion, diabetes mellitus, and other chronic diseases.

“A series of studies have shown that risk factors for POP include age, BMI, parity, family history of POP, levator avulsion, diabetes mellitus and other chronic diseases (Tegerstedt and Hammarstr€ om 2004, Diez-Itza et al. 2007, Fialkow et al. 2008, Denman et al. 2008, Salvatore et al. 2009, Vergeldt et al. 2015).”

Surgery for POP is known to have a high recurrence rate of 36%.

“However, surgery for POP is known to have a high recurrence rate of 36% (Tegerstedt and Hammarstr€ om 2004, Diez-Itza et al. 2007, Fialkow et al. 2008, Friedman et al. 2018).”

The finding that advanced stage of prolapse was not a risk factor is consistent with Fialkow et al.

“Similarly, Fialkow et al. [15] did not find any association between advanced stage of POP and recurrence.”

The higher recurrence rate reported by Vakili et al. (58% at 1 year) may be due to differences in the definitions of recurrence used.

“However, another study by Vakili et al. [16] reported a higher recurrence rate of 58% at 1 year after surgery. This contrast could be due to differences in the definitions of recurrence used. Vakili et al. [16] defined recurrence as any prolapse beyond stage zero according to the POP-Q system, whereas in this study we used POP-Q stage II or greater to define recurrence, as in other studies [12, 13”

Reported recurrence rates after POP surgery vary widely, from 13% to 58% depending on follow-up duration and definition.

“The recurrence rates seem to differ from one study to another. Whiteside et al. [12] reported a recurrence rate of 58% after 1 year of follow-up, whereas in studies where the follow-up period was 5 years, recurrence was between 13 and 31% [13, 14]. Another study found a recurrence rate of 25% after a 10-year retrospective follow-up [15].”