STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Women who have had a hysterectomy are more than twice as likely to have surgery for urinary incontinence as women with an intact uterus, a Swedish study found.

Researchers at the University Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, said hysterectomies are the most common gynecological abdominal operations in the world normally performed to remedy benign medical problems in order to improve patients' quality of life.

However, the long-term effects have been largely unknown, one of the study's authors, Daniel Altman, said.

Altman and his colleagues analyzed patient registers for the years 1973 to 2003, that incorporated more than 165,000 women who have had hysterectomies and almost 479,000 women who had not.

The study, published in the The Lancet, found the highest likelihood of incontinence surgery was noted within five years of the removal of the uterus, with the higher risk remaining throughout the patients' lives. The risk increased most for women who had a hysterectomy before menopause or after having undergone several deliveries.