Pelvic reconstructive surgery in geriatric urogynaecology: an uphill task

Female ageing “Geripause” is receiving much attention from the health care community due to worldwide increase in proportion of elderly population as a result of improved health services and awareness. Pelvic floor disorder such as urinary incontinence, faecal incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse disproportionately affect geriatric population and undermines the quality of life. Surgery remains an important and effective therapeutic option for many women with pelvic floor disorders. Operative outcome can be adversely affected in elderly because of physiologic changes associated with aging and the increased number of comorbidities. To present date there is limited information on morbidity and mortality following urogynaecology surgery in geriatric patients. A retrospective analysis was performed on all patients of age more than 60 years old who underwent urogynaecologic surgery in urogynaecology unit from January 2011 to December 2014. Total 551 patients of all age underwent pelvic reconstructive surgery and Out of 121 patients were of age more than 60 years. Overall in our series 66% patients had one or more than one risk factors and 23% of patients had one or more than one perioperative complications. Intraoperative and postoperative complications rate was 4.9% and 18.1% respectively. Elderly women can undergo urogynecologic surgery with an acceptable rate of complications and should not be excluded from interventions that may improve their quality of life.