International Urogynecology Journal

, Volume 21, Issue 8, pp 903–910 | Cite as

Urinary tract injury: medical negligence or unavoidable complication?

Review
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

The incidence of urinary tract injury is low in most gynaecological operations but, if undiagnosed, is a cause of significant postoperative morbidity for the patient and litigation for the gynaecologist. A Medline search of studies of urinary tract injury at gynaecological surgery show that only one in 10 ureteral injuries and one in three bladder injuries are detected at the time of surgery without intra-operative cystoscopy. As cystoscopy is not routinely performed by the majority of gynaecologists during surgery, even in difficult cases, failure to detect injury to the urinary tract by itself should not be seen as negligence. However, all gynaecologists performing pelvic surgery should be encouraged to become competent in cystourethroscopy and perform this intra-operatively, at least in all high-risk cases of gynaecological surgery.

Keywords

Urinary tract injury Medical negligence Gynaecological surgery Cystourethroscopy 
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Notes

Funding

None applicable.

Conflict of Interest

None.

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Copyright information

© The International Urogynecological Association 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Urogynaecology, Mercy Hospital for WomenMelbourne UniversityMelbourneAustralia
  2. 2.Urogynaecology DepartmentMercy Hospital for WomenHeidelbergAustralia

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