Long-term assessment of the incontinence ring pessary for the treatment of stress incontinence.

A prospective cohort of 38 women who presented with predominantly stress incontinence symptoms were fitted with an incontinence ring pessary. They had documented stress incontinence on multichannel urodynamic testing. Nine women (24%) were not leaking by subjective measures. Six women (16%) continued using the pessary. This group of women had no statistically identifiable parameters that distinguished them from women who had not wanted to continue using the pessary. There was a trend showing that successfully fitted women were younger (41 vs 52 years old), had less pelvic surgery and leaked less on semiquantitative pad testing (10.7 g vs 19.2 g). In women who chose to continue using the pessary there was a trend showing a decrease in the semiquantitative pad score (1.2 g from 10.7 g) and 7-day voiding diary (1.5 episodes from 4.1). In conclusion, the incontinence pessary was successful in a small proportion of women with stress incontinence.