Pelvic organ prolapse: is it time to define it?

Excerpt

Pelvic organ prolapse is a disease that currently lacks a clinically relevant definition. Despite this, we spend over US $1 billion annually in the United States treating it and it is the third most common indication listed for hysterectomy and the most common indication for hysterectomies in menopausal women [1]. For most practitioners, pelvic organ prolapse is something which they recognize when they see it and conversely recognize its absence, but they cannot define the point when a patient goes from normal support to pelvic organ prolapse. Despite this, researchers in the field of urogynecology (myself included) continue to report on surgical cure rates and epidemiologic risk factors for pelvic organ prolapse despite having no clear cut uniformly recognized definition for the disease. Could you imagine the state of affairs in cardiovascular research if hypertension was a vaguely defined entity whose definition was left up to the individual investigator (Fig. 1).

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