AIMS OF STUDY: External magnetic stimulation is a new non aggressive alternative(1) for treatment of female incontinence. Many questions have to be answered, before the full acceptance in the routine medical practice. One of them is the duration of the benefit. Herein, we pretend to evaluate the immediate results of treatment in 50 consecutive patients, evaluating early after the treatment and  at an average follow up of 6 months, to check the duration of the results.

METHODS: Fifty-three women with demonstrable stress incontinence were enrolled in a prospective study. Pre and post treatment evaluation included history, physical examination, a validated quality of life survey(QQV) and a 72 hours bladder diary. Treatments included 16 perineal magnetic stimulation, with a minimum interval of 36 hours, consisting of 10 minutes of intermittent low frequency stimulation(5 Hz), followed by 10 minutes of intermittent high frequency stimulation (50 Hz). The results regarding number of pads, leaking episodes and quality of life score were statistically compared to patients age, body mass, parity, previous surgeries for urinary incontinence, menopause, time since beginning of incontinence, hysterectomy and grade of previous incontinence. The mean follow up was 6 months.

RESULTS: Three patients abandoned the study, for reasons not related to the procedure. Immediately after the treatment, twenty-one(42%) patients were completely dry(Table-2), not included 4 patients that had previously very occasional leaking episodes. The average number of pads were reduced from 3 to 1 per day (P<0.001). The leaking episodes were reduced from 4 to 1 per day(P<0.001) and the average of the previous score for quality of life that were 69, improving to 93(P<0.001)(Table-1). No difference were obtained regarding the age of the patient when compared to score (P=0.734). No difference was noted by comparison of various groups of body mass, parity, previous surgeries, time of menopause and incontinence, and previous hysterectomy.

After 6 months of follow up, the number of dry patients was reduced from 42% to 24%. Two months and a half was the meantime of worsening for those who lost the dry condition.

TABLE 1- Results pre and post treatment of 50 patients, by magnetic perineal stimulation.

Table 2- Duration of results after external magnetic stimulation

           

	Pre treatment	Imediate results*	6 months follow up*
No leak One or more leaks episodes	4(8%) 46(92%)	21(42%) 25(50%)	12(24%) 34(68%)

* In the immediate results and 6 months follow up was exclude the 4 patients with eventual leaking in the diary.

CONCLUSION: Perineal external magnetic stimulation offers an immediate dry situation to 42 % of patients with previous demonstrable leak episodes. After 6 months of cessation of treatment, incontinence returned to part of the group, with only 24% referring absence of leaking episodes. This facts suggests the need of maintenance treatment, with the intensity frequency to be defined by further studies. 

1- Extracorporeal magnetic innervation therapy for stress urinary incontinence: Urology 53(6), 1108-1111, 1999.

2- Quality of life of persons with urinary  incontinence: development of a new measure. Urology 47:67-72 ,1996.