Grant: Project Grant

Up to a third of women lose urine involuntarily (urine incontinence). While being "wet" may dramatically impact women's quality of life, urinary incontinence is also expensive for patients, society and the health care system. The costs for both patients and the health care system are high: protective pads and treatments such as physiotherapy, medical devices and surgery. In addition, this condition may affect women's ability to work (loss of income). There is an urgent need for new low cost, effective and validated therapies to treat women with incontinence. Recently, an innovative therapy using a laser has been used to treat women with incontinence. Many private clinics in Canada are offering these laser therapies (at a cost of $2000-3000) to treat incontinence. The laser is applied through the vagina in a procedure that does not require anesthesia. This is a relatively quick procedure (< 10 minutes) with very few reported complications and risks. The heat generated by the laser is reported to change the structure of the tissue around the vagina and add support for the vagina and bladder to reduce incontinence. Although this innovative, low-risk, potentially low cost and quick procedure would seem to be a very attractive option for women with incontinence, the laser is not being widely offered to women in Canada, in part because of a lack of scientific studies showing that the laser is effective. To date, there have been no randomized controlled clinical trials ('gold standard' studies) that have evaluated the efficacy of laser treatment. It is difficult for physicians to recommend such a treatment to the many patients with urinary incontinence without such evidence. A randomized controlled trial to study how effective the laser is to treat women with incontinence will be conducted. If the laser is shown to be effective, this treatment could represent a new, innovative and potentially low-cost therapy to help the millions of women with incontinence.