|  | Conditions Treatments | Urinary Disorders

MMK Procedure for Female Urinary Stress Incontinence

Incontinence is a common medical problem for women and men of all ages. Doctors classify incontinence into categories, including stress, urge, functional and overflow. The treatment your doctor recommends will depend on what kind of incontinence you have. If you have stress incontinence, then the Marshall-Marchetti-Krantz, or MMK, procedure, is one potential form of treatment.

  1. Stress Incontinence

    • Stress incontinence is a common form of incontinence in females. Physical changes caused by pregnancy, childbirth and menopause weaken your bladder control by compromising the ligaments and pelvic floor muscles that help support your bladder. When you sneeze, cough or move in a way that puts pressure on your bladder, you might experience involuntary urine leakage. Stress incontinence can be treated. One option is the MMK procedure.

    MMK Procedure

    • MMK is a bladder neck suspension procedure designed to provide increased support to the urethra and bladder neck and prevent urine leakage because of stress incontinence. During the procedure, your doctor will make an incision in your lower abdomen. She will place sutures in the tissue near your bladder neck, then will secure them in the cartilage of your pubic bone. The sutures will support the bladder neck the way your ligaments and pelvic floor muscles used to.

    Recovery

    • Because the MMK procedure involves an abdominal incision, recovery time can take as long as six weeks. During the first part of your recovery, you could require the use of a catheter in order to relieve yourself. If this occurs, your doctor can show you how to use either a short-term or a long-term catheter until you are able to urinate normally.

    Complications

    • Potential complications for female patients who undergo the MMK procedure to treat urinary stress incontinence include the risk of having an adverse reaction to the anesthesia. There is also a risk that you could experience inflammation at the site where the sutures are secured to your pubic bone. You could also develop an infection at the connection site.

    Considerations

    • If you experience female stress urinary incontinence, your doctor will probably suggest less invasive treatment options before recommending surgery. If they do not work, then there are a few different surgeries to consider. Bladder neck suspension procedures have an 80 percent success rate. If your doctor does not think the MMK procedure is suitable for you, there are other forms of bladder neck suspension, including the Burch Procedure.

Urinary Disorders - Related Articles