Surgical treatment of urethral stricture: still a problem?

In the introduction the author stresses that the main facts which decide the choice and prognosis of therapy are localization, length and the so-called complexity of the stricture. His 15-year material from 388 operations on 290 patients is presented. Circular strictures of the anterior urethra (a total of 135 operations) are treated through endoscopic urethrotomy as the primary procedure and mostly by open resection as the secondary one. Longitudinal strictures of the anterior urethra (199 operations) are treated by marsupialization, pedicled cutaneous flap and Michalowski's "sleeve" technique as primary procedures. As the secondary procedure (after failure of the first operation) marsupialization only was performed. Complex strictures of the posterior urethra (total 54) were treated mostly by transpubic approach, which showed good results in 74% cases on 41 operations.