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Login to My HealthRobotic Surgery
There are more than 120,000 cases of uterine and vaginal vault prolapse that are surgically treated each year in the United States. Prolapse (or falling) of any pelvic floor organ (vagina, uterus, bladder or rectum) occurs when the connective tissues or muscles within the body cavity are weak and unable to hold the pelvis in its natural orientation.
The weakening of connective tissues accelerates with age, after child birth, with weight gain and strenuous physical labor. Women experiencing pelvic organ prolapse typically have problems with urinary incontinence, vaginal ulceration, sexual dysfunction and/or having a bowel movement.
Sacrocolpopexy is a procedure to surgically correct vaginal vault prolapse where mesh is used to hold the vagina in the correct anatomical position. This procedure traditionally has been performed as an open, invasive surgery with a long horizontal incision being made in the lower abdomen to manually access the inter-abdominal organs, including the uterus.
USC’s Institute of Urology is the only program in Southern California that offers a full range of options for female pelvic floor disorders including robotic surgical techniques to treat vaginal vault prolapse. For most women, robotic sacrocolpopexy offers numerous potential benefits over a traditional open approach.
For many people who want to start a family, the dream of having a child is not easily realized. Infertility is often defined as not being able to get pregnant after trying for one year. The Centers for Disease Control reports that in any given year approximately eight percent of women of reproductive age at some point have an infertility-related medical visit.
Women suffering from infertility who need surgery to correct the major causes such as fibroids, endometriosis and congenital abnormalities are seeing the benefits of robotic surgery.
Surgeons at the USC Institute of Urology use minimally invasive robotic surgery to correct the following conditions which affect female fertility:
• Blocked fallopian tubes
• Endometriosis
• Tubal ligation reversal (anastomosis)
• Uterine fibroids
