Women are increasingly being encouraged to use laser treatment, either for aesthetic purposes (vaginal rejuvenation), for treating urinary incontinence or bladder problems, or for pelvic organ prolapse.
When offering “comfortable” and “minimally invasive” laser therapies, high success rates and related patient satisfaction are promised.
This raises the question of whether such treatment really helps or is it merely a prospect of easy profit? How much truth is there in the stated claims about laser effectiveness? And what does the medical profession say about this?
According to the results of the latest research published in the most important international urogynecological journal “International Urogynecology Journal“, there is currently insufficient objective evidence of laser effectiveness in treating women with urinary incontinence, overactive bladder, or uterine or bladder prolapse.
Almost all clinical studies on vaginal laser therapy published to date are of very poor quality and do not include data on long-term effectiveness.
When testing short-term laser effectiveness, the possibility of placebo effect is not excluded. When demonstrating treatment success, an extremely high degree of bias has been proven with laser treatment.
The fact is that laser penetration into vaginal tissue is less than 1 mm, and since the vaginal mucosa is approximately 2.5 mm thick, this means that the laser beam does not even penetrate the vaginal mucosa and thus does not reach the supporting structures (fascia) of the urethra and bladder and ligaments, which it would certainly need to affect if it were to eliminate urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.
Research that might support the place of vaginal laser in urogynecology is mostly biased and sponsored by companies that sell lasers.
Due to all the above, we do not recommend or support the use of laser at Klinika BUT!
Our patients are often in a dilemma regarding incontinence treatment.
Below we share with you what Prof. Dr. But answers to his patients when they ask about comparing incontinence treatment with mini-sling surgery versus laser treatment for incontinence:
- The success of mini-sling surgery is scientifically proven; urinary incontinence is effectively prevented only through surgery. There is no data on objective improvement of urinary incontinence after vaginal laser therapy, or it is biased!
- Mini-sling tape implantation is supported by all independent professional organizations in the field of urogynecology and urology (IUGA, ICS, SIU), while the use of vaginal laser in urogynecology is not supported by the same professional organizations. The effect of mini-sling surgery is immediate and long-lasting; laser is unfortunately without effect, or it is only a placebo effect.
- The duration of mini-sling procedure is shorter than the duration of vaginal laser treatment, and both procedures involve no skin incision.
- After mini-sling surgery, when local anesthesia wears off, you may experience temporary discomfort in the pelvis and bladder; after vaginal laser, a burning sensation in the vagina is common.
- Mini-sling procedure is somewhat more expensive, but the surgical success is permanent. Vaginal laser must be repeated multiple times, which increases the cost and eventually exceeds the cost of surgery ~ and this without guaranteed success.
- The day after mini-sling surgery, you can go to work if you wish.
- The success of mini-sling surgery is permanent ~ and successful in more than 98% of operations ~ provided that stress incontinence is properly diagnosed and the patient has no associated bladder problems.
- All of the above applies provided that the mini-sling surgery is performed by a specialist physician who is trained for this procedure and has experience with it. This is a short and minimally invasive procedure that requires extensive knowledge and experience of a urogynecologist.
