Enlargement of the genital hiatus is associated with prolapse recurrence in patients undergoing sacrospinous ligament fixation.

OBJECTIVE

To correlate genital hiatus (GH) size with surgical failures in patients undergoing sacrospinous ligament fixation (SSLF) and compare anatomic outcomes after classification based on GH size.

METHODS

A retrospective review of 81 patients who underwent SSLF for apical prolapse from 2010 to 2016 at a teaching hospital. Anatomical outcome is reported using the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantifications System. A comparison of parametric continuous variables was performed using unpaired Student t test. Categorical variables were evaluated using Pearson's χ2 test and Fisher's exact test. A P value <0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS

Among the 81 patients, no difference in age, parity, body mass index, preoperative prolapse stage or follow-up time was noted between those whose surgery succeeded and those with failed surgery. Postoperatively, a widened GH was significantly associated with recurrent prolapse (P < 0.001). When the preoperative size of the GH was dichotomized into widened (≥4 cm) or normal (<4 cm), there was a non-significant (P = 0.444) trend of more failures in the widened GH group. A posterior colporrhaphy did not improve success.

CONCLUSION

Both preoperative and postoperative widened GH correlated with having more surgical failures following SSLF. Importantly, postoperatively a normal size GH was significantly associated with more surgical success.