Codifying Anterior Urethral Strictures with UREThRAL Stricture Score

Abstract

Introduction: Urethral stricture description is not standardized. This makes surgical decision-making less reproducible and increases the difficulty of objectively analyzing urethroplasty literature. Wiegand and Brandes 2 developed the UREThRAL stricture score to codify anterior strictures. The objectives of this study were to evaluate urethral stricture score in management of anterior urethral strictures. Material and methods:This was a prospective observation study, which included all patients operated for stricture urethra between March 2015 to march 2017 after applying exclusion criteria. The UREThRAL STRICTURE SCORE for each patient was calculated. The obtained USS was related to the surgical procedure, intraoperative complexity, complications that patient underwent for any significant correlation. Results:A total of 94 patients were included in study. A total of 26 (27.66%) patients underwent VIU while 26 (27.66%) and 42 (44.68%) of patients underwent anastomotic urethroplasty and BMG urethroplasty respectively with a overall success rate of 76.60%. Mean UREThRAL Stricture Score of 94 patients was 9.617 with a range of 5 -21. Conclusion:This study confirms the validity of UREThRAL stricture score in predicting surgical complexity for anterior urethral strictures with higher USS score patient requiring more complex surgery.

Classification systems for anterior urethral stricture disease in men: a systematic review

“…Krebs and colleagues also used a modified version of the score, eliminating aetiology and retention component to compare outcomes of internal urethrotomy in men with neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction using clean intermittent selfcatheterisation [24]. Chaitanya et al were able to show an association between higher USS with blood transfusion, complications and higher recurrence risk in patients who underwent visual internal urethrotomy, anastomotic urethroplasty and buccal mucosal graft urethroplasty [25]. Other staging systems such as cystoscopy-based reporting system by Purojhit and colleagues have been used in a case report, however, has not been used in studies or validated externally [26].…”