title: The treatment of female stress urinary incontinence: an evidenced-based review.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To review the literature on the surgical and nonsurgical treatment options for stress urinary incontinence in women, focusing exclusively on randomized clinical trials and high quality meta-analyses.
  
  
  METHODS
  A computer-aided and manual search for published randomized controlled trials and high quality meta-analyses investigating both conservative and surgical treatment options for stress urinary incontinence. In the case of a treatment that is not studied in these formats large case series have been used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Articles were reviewed and the results summarized on pelvic floor physical therapy, pharmacotherapy, bulking agents, and surgery (open and minimally invasive).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are numerous high quality studies in the literature. It can be difficult to make definitive conclusions on the most appropriate treatment options due to the variability in the outcomes used to define success in these articles. There is also a dire lack of studies evaluating and comparing the surgical options for patients with intrinsic sphincter deficiency.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Division of Neurourology and Pelvic Floor Reconstruction, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Anne P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Cameron
authors.forename: Allen McNeil
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Haraway
keywords: conservative and surgical treatment; stress urinary incontinence