Is vaginally assisted laparoscopic sacrohystero/colpopexy a feasible technique?

Abstract

To the Editor, Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is defined as the descent of one or more of the pelvic organs, with a woman having symptoms related to the "downward displacement" of a pelvic organ. POP is very common in pre-and postmenopausal women; the lifetime risk of women undergoing a surgery for POP is about 11% and about 30% will undergo repeat surgery (1). A variety of surgical techniques including vaginal, abdominal, and laparoscopic (conventional or robotic) approaches can be used for management. Laparoscopic sacrohystero/colpopexy (LSHC) provides the potential to combine the success rates of an abdominal approach with the superiorities of minimally invasive surgery. However, LSHC requires high levels of laparoscopic operative skills and experience and is associated with longer operative times (2). In light of these data, we designed our new technique, vaginally assisted laparoscopic sacrohysterocervicopexy, with the aim of facilitating the procedure and reducing operation time, and recently we presented our technique (3). The most important part of our technique is the combination of both vaginal and laparoscopic routes and transferring the mesh to the sacral promontory by retroperitoneal tunneling (3). Eventually, the operation time was significantly reduced. This technique can also be combined with other vaginal approaches such as Manchester-Fothergill operation (4).In the literature, there are limited reports about vaginally assisted laparoscopic approaches. Among