ABSTRACT
Introduction The Czech surgeon Pawlik reported the first cystectomy in a female more than a century ago.1 He described an implantation of the ureters into the vagina with a good postoperative result regarding continence as well as a survival of 16 years. Other physicians could not achieve similar results and therefore this technique of urinary diversion was subsequently abandoned. Until recently, women undergoing cystectomy for bladder cancer received urinary diversion either into the intact rectosigmoid or into the abdominal skin.2-6 Despite increasing popularity for orthotopic neobladders after cystectomy in men with bladder cancer during the last decade, a similar approach for female patients was thought not to be appropriate because of the need for a concomitant total urethrectomy.7
