Trinity lecturer Prof David Taylor has published research criticising the high failure rates in medical treatments that use surgical mesh, suggesting that many women who have been treated using this method have been left with permanent damage and pain.
Taylor, a professor of Materials Engineering, concludes his review – which was published in The Journal of the Mechanical Behaviour of Biomedical Materials – by suggesting that more experiments should have been conducted before using surgical mesh in order to assess properly how it would behave in areas such as the vagina and urinary system. Taylor also suggests that more information should be given to patients prior to the procedure.
The treatment involves the use of surgical mesh for pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. The treatment examined by Taylor is frequently used for vaginal prolapse, which in some cases may be caused by childbirth.
The surgical mesh being used to treat prolapse injury has also been used in the treatment of hernias for more than 50 years. In the prolapse cases, however, the mesh eroded 10 per cent of the time, rising to 30 per cent in some studies. When used to combat urinary incontinence the mesh eroded 2–3 per cent of the time.
Irrespective of its consequences, when used in the treatment of vaginal prolapse and urinary incontinence the mesh cannot be removed, despite the fact that it is causing damage to surrounding organs and tissues. The women who have received this treatment and for whom it has failed will endure a lifetime of pain.
In a press statement, Taylor said: “The use of surgical mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence seems to provide another example in which new products have been developed that expand the use of existing materials without conducting the necessary experiments to properly understand the material, and how it will react in its new application.”
“My opinion is that patients should be given more information to allow them to make an informed decision about the risks involved”, he said.
Taylor said: “Chemical degradation of the material due to bacterial infection, and poor surgical technique are two potential reasons for the failures, but further work is needed – especially the examination of failed mesh products – to properly determine the underlying causes of this problem.”
The treatment has already been banned or restricted in many countries, including the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand.
