Stress urinary incontinence is the most common type of leakage. This occurs when urine is lost during activities such as walking, aerobics or even sneezing and coughing. The added abdominal pressure associated with these events can cause urine to leak. The pelvic floor muscles, which support the bladder and urethra, can be weakened, thus preventing the sphincter muscles from working properly. This can also occur if the sphincter muscles themselves are weakened or damaged from previous childbirth or surgical trauma. Menopausal women can also suffer from small amounts of leakage as a result of decreased estrogen levels. In men, the most common cause of incontinence is surgery on the prostate. This is more frequent after radical prostatectomy for cancer than after transurethral surgery for.

Stress incontinence in the female is treated at the beginning with behavior modification and pelvic exercise. Sometime techniques like biofeedback or electrical stimulation of the pelvic muscles can help. But when the symptoms are more severe and conservative measures are not helping the treatment is surgery. In selected cases bulking agents can be used to increase continence. The operation is done under local anesthesia and is minimally invasive but the cure rates are lower compared to open surgical procedures.

Surgical options have the highest success rates. One option is abdominal surgery in which the vaginal tissues are affixed to the pubic bone. The long-term results are good but the surgery requires longer recuperation time and is generally only used when other abdominal surgeries are also required. The most common and most popular surgery for stress incontinence is the sling procedure. In this operation a strip of tissue is applied under the urethra to provide compression and improve urethral closure. The operation is minimally invasive and patients recuperate very quickly. The tissue used to create the sling can be a segment of the patient's abdominal wall, specially treated fascia, skin from a cadaver or a synthetic material.