A Meta-analysis of the effect of female pelvic organ prolapse surgery on sexual function of the male partner

Abstract:

Objective：To investigate the effect of female pelvic organ prolapse（POP） surgery on the sexual function of male partners. Methods：A comparative study of sexual function changes in male partners between before and after female POP surgery，including randomized controlled trials，cohort studies，and case-control studies，was performed on the basis of information retrieval from PubMed，the Cochrane Library，Medline，Embase，the Science Citation Index，the Social Science Citation Index，the Chinese Journal Full-text Database，the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database，the VIP Medical Database，and the Wanfang Medical Database. Fe－male POP surgery methods include anterior and/or posterior vaginal wall repair，vaginal hysterectomy，Manchester operation，vaginal closure，and modified pelvic floor reconstruction. Literature on female POP accompanying urinary incontinence was excluded. A meta-analysis of the retrieved data was performed using the RevMan 5.3 software. Results：Of the 318 related articles retrieved，three were systematically evaluated for changes in the sexual function of the male partner between before and after female POP surgery. In this study，134 couples were included. The following were the scoring criteria used：no significant changes in erectile function （median，95% confidence interval[CI]：－0.04，－0.57 to 0.49，P=0.89 vs. －0.59，－2.60 to 1.42，P=0.57），ejaculation function（－0.08，－0.48 to 0.33，P=0.72 vs. －0.21，－1.20 to 0.78，P=0.68），sexual desire（－0.86，－2.43 to 0.70，P=0.28），and overall sexual satisfaction（－0.93，－2.65 to 0.79，P=0.29 vs. 0.05，－1.60 to 1.70，P=0.95） for male partners from before to after female POP surgery. Conclusion：Surgical treatment for female POP does not significantly improve the erectile and ejaculation functions，sexual desire，and overall sexual satis－faction of male partners. This study has the following limitations：limited number of related original studies and some heterogeneity in the measurement and evaluation of male sexual function.