Urinary incontinence more than 15 years after premenopausal risk‐reducing salpingo‐oophorectomy: a multicentre cross‐sectional study

Objective To study the impact of premenopausal risk‐reducing salpingo‐oophorectomy (RRSO), compared with postmenopausal RRSO, on urinary incontinence (UI) ≥10 years later. Design Cross‐sectional study, nested in a nationwide cohort. Setting Multicentre in the Netherlands. Population 750 women (68% BRCA1/2 pathogenic variant carriers) who underwent either premenopausal RRSO (≤45 years, n = 496) or postmenopausal RRSO (≥54 years, n = 254). All participants were ≥55 years at the time of the study. Methods Urinary incontinence was assessed by the urinary distress inventory‐6 (UDI‐6); a score ≥33.3 indicated symptomatic UI. The incontinence impact questionnaire short form (IIQ‐SF) was used to assess the impact on women's health‐related quality of life (HR‐QoL). Differences between groups were analysed using regression analyses adjusting for current age and other confounders. Main outcome measures Differences in UDI‐6 scores and IIQ‐SF scores between women with a premenopausal and a postmenopausal RRSO. Results Women in the premenopausal RRSO group had slightly higher UDI‐6 scores compared with women in the postmenopausal RRSO group (P = 0.053), and their risk of symptomatic UI was non‐significantly increased (odds ratio [OR] 2.1, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.93–4.78). A premenopausal RRSO was associated with a higher risk of stress UI (OR 3.5, 95% CI 1.2–10.0) but not with urge UI. The proportions of women with a significant impact of UI on HR‐QoL were similar in the premenopausal and postmenopausal RRSO groups (10.4% and 13.0%, respectively; P = 0.46). Conclusions More than 15 years after premenopausal RRSO, there were no significant differences in overall symptomatic UI between women with a premenopausal and those with a postmenopausal RRSO.