Evaluating efficacy of various operative procedures done in anterior urethral stricture using urethral stricture score

CONTEXT: Scoring systems have been an important tool of clinical decision making in medicine. As scoring systems like Glasgow Coma scale have made a revolutionary change in stratifying the patient, in particular, clinical scenario. Wiegand et al. in 2012 proposed UREThRAL Score a novel method to quantify anterior urethral stricture. AIMS: The aim was to validate urethral stricture score (USS) for evaluating the efficacy of operative procedures. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Study was done in a retrospective manner and includes patients operated for anterior urethral stricture by a single surgeon in tertiary care center over the period of 2008–2014. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A total of 57 cases were included in this study who met the inclusion criteria, of these cases 7 underwent excision and primary anastomosis (EPA), 20 underwent preputial flap urethroplasty (PFUP), 22 underwent tunica albuginea urethroplasty (TAU), and rest 8 underwent scrotal flap urethroplasty (SFUP). Procedures were assigned different complexity level, and USS was compared with the particular procedure to see the relation between both. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Data were analyzed using ANOVA on SPSS software. RESULTS: Mean USS for EPA, PFUP, TAU, and SFUP in our study group was found to be 6.57, 8.95, 9.00, and 10.00, respectively, with an overall USS of 9.03, with a standard deviation of 1.56. USS was significantly associated with complexity. CONCLUSIONS: Mean USS increased with increase in surgical complexity indicating that higher USS correlates with more complex surgery. Strongest association between complexity and the individual parameter was found with location and length.