Early experience with the use of buccal mucosa for substitution urethroplasty.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the early results of anterior urethroplasty using a one-stage free graft with buccal mucosa.

PATIENTS AND METHOD

Thirty-nine patients (aged 23-59 years) underwent a one-stage urethroplasty using buccal mucosa, 28 as a patch and 11 as tube grafts. All patients were evaluated by post-operative urethrography at 6 months and were followed using urinary flow rates and symptoms for 2-5 years.

RESULT

There was one recurrent stricture (3%) in the group with a patch urethroplasty but five of the 11 patients with tube grafts had a recurrent stricture.

CONCLUSION

The early results using buccal mucosa for patch urethroplasty are encouraging. Although the results from tube grafts are poor, they are similar to those from other methods of single-stage urethroplasty.