What are the methods to relieve congenital absence of vagina?

Congenital absence of vagina is a common congenital malformation of the reproductive tract, which is often discovered and treated due to the absence of menstruation after puberty. Experts say that congenital absence of vagina can lead to sexual intercourse difficulties and seriously affect the patient's normal life, so the treatment of congenital absence of vagina is critical. Next, let's learn about the surgical treatment methods of congenital absence of vagina with experts.

Surgical treatment of congenital absence of vagina

In addition to the non-surgical treatment method of vaginoplasty, surgery is the main treatment for congenital absence of vagina, namely artificial vaginoplasty.

Artificial vaginoplasty is to separate a cavity about 8-10cm long between the bladder and the rectum, and cover the four walls of the cavity with various tissues, and fill them with gauze to make the tissue grow close to the four walls. After about 7-10 days, the covered tissue grows well and a hard model can be used to ensure that the vagina does not collapse and prevent tissue contracture.

There are more than 20 types of vaginoplasty, which are named differently because of the different padding materials used for artificial vaginal creation. Commonly used ones include: amniotic membrane vaginoplasty, peritoneal vaginoplasty, sigmoid colon vaginoplasty, flap vaginoplasty, and biological patch vaginoplasty. The most common ones are as follows:

1. Biological patch method of artificial vaginoplasty:

Medical tissue patches currently used both at home and abroad cover the four walls of the artificial vagina to achieve the purpose of vaginal reconstruction. It is a natural extracellular matrix obtained by decellularizing allogeneic tissue using tissue engineering technology, and is a dermis substitute.

2. Peritoneal vaginoplasty:

With the development of minimally invasive technology, laparoscopic technology has been improved day by day, and peritoneal vaginoplasty, which is completed through laparoscopy and then the peritoneum of the pelvic wall is pulled down to line the cavity separated from the vagina, has also been widely carried out.

3. Amniotic membrane vaginoplasty:

Amniotic membrane vaginoplasty uses fresh amniotic membrane as a temporary biological dressing. The covered amniotic membrane has a high growth rate and can prevent wound infection and act as a fiber scaffold. After surgery, the vaginal vestibule mucosal epithelium can grow along the scaffold into the cavity. Generally, after 3-6 months, the final vagina is similar to the natural vagina.

4. Sigmoid colon vaginoplasty:

Sigmoid colon vaginoplasty requires an open abdomen to free a section of sigmoid colon that maintains blood flow and transplant it into the formed vaginal cavity. Since this operation directly uses the intestine to replace the vagina without the need for vaginal mucosal epithelium to crawl and grow, the vagina will not contract after the operation and can remain wide, and there is no need to wear a vaginal model.

5. Autologous flap vaginoplasty:

Autologous skin flap vaginoplasty is a procedure that uses a free skin graft from the patient's own skin and then transplants it into the formed vaginal cavity. Commonly used sites for skin grafts include the vulva, bilateral groin, abdomen, etc. The survival rate of the skin graft is high, and the success rate of the operation is high.