Anastomic urethroplasty in bulbar urethral stricture. 13 years experience in a department of urology

Abstract

Urethral stenosis is a common disease in the clinical practice of urology, with a major impact on the quality of life of patients. The anastomotic urethroplasty is a technique with very precise indications usually membranous or bulbar urethra stenosis with a length of 3 cm or up to 7 cm when it is secondary to urethral disruptions (no stenosis) after pelvic trauma.

Objective: We review anastomotic urethroplasty performed in our department between 2002 and 2015.

Methods: A retrospective, descriptive and inferential analysis on 107 patients out of 482 treated with Anastomotic urethroplasty by urethral strictures at the Urology Department of the Hospital "Virgen de la Victoria" (Malaga) from January 2002 to September 2015, establishing effectiveness and safety of the technique, as well as factors that might influence the results. The main diagnostic method was retrograde urethrography and voiding cystourethrography in 100% of patients undergoing surgery, using voiding uroflowmetry for subsequent monitoring. The definition of success was a postoperative flowmetry with Qmax>15 ml/s, and in case of lower flow, we perform a cystoscopy to verify recurrence of stenosis or exclude other pathology.

Results: The median age was 42 years, with a mean follow up of 59 months. The length of stenosis valued by retrograde urethrography and voiding cystourethrography was in 91.6% of cases of >1 cm and <2 cm. The most common etiology was idiopathic in 72.9%, followed by iatrogenic with 15.9%. Regarding the location, it was observed that the area most often affected was the bulbar urethra with 82.2%, with the membranous urethra in second place. In 77.6% of patients anastomotic urethroplasty was the initial treatment, followed in frequency by direct vision internal urethrotomy 9.3%. In the case of comorbidities associated with treatment with anastomotic urethroplasty it was observed that only Diabetes Mellitus had a tendency to statistical significance, with p=0.092, not demonstrating such significance in the case of hypertension or when the subject presented Diabetes Mellitus together with hypertension. Finally, the intervention was successful in 102 cases (95.3%), with only 5 cases (4.7%) where it failed, 4 of them treated with a new Anastomotic urethroplasty, with resolution of the stricture.

Conclusions: Anastomotic urethroplasty is the treatment of choice for short bulbar urethral stricture, with high success rate and low complication rate, as well as low recurrence of these.