OBJECTIVES: Retrospective analysis of a series of patients with stress urinary incontinence that underwent surgery in our department, by means of the TVT and TOT techniques. We evaluate post operative continence, considering “cured” the patient with complete continence and “failure” any type of involuntary stress urine leak, independently of its severity, registering the time of its appearance. For this purpose we used the Kaplan-Meier analysis comparing both techniques with the Breslow test. Additionally, postoperative complications were evaluated.RESULTS: 128 patients who underwent surgery by TVT (69 patients, 53.9%) and TOT (59 patients, 46.1%). Mean age was 54.4 years for TVT (95% CI 52.0-56.8) and 59 years for TOT (95% CI 55.9-62.1). Mean follow-up time was 18.7 months for TVT (95% CI 15.6-21.9) and 7.4 months for TOT (95% CI 5.8-8.9). Overall continence rate was 86.7%, 88.4% for TVT and 84.7% for TOT. The probability of being continent six months after surgery was 89.1% for TVT and 78.2% for TOT (no significant differences, p = 0.31), with almost all failures within the first six months after surgery. TVT was more frecuently associated with urgency symptoms (33.3%,p = 0.001) and urge incontinence (18.8%,p = 0.16), urinary retention (11.6%,p = 0.38), and prevesical hematoma requiring mesh retrieval. Greater post operative pain was observed with TOT (20.3%, p= 0.005).CONCLUSIONS: Our results evidence a similar efficacy with both techniques, with the failures appearing over the first months after surgery. Complications of the voiding urgency type are significantly more frequent with TVT.