Predictors of urethral stricture recurrence following urethroplasty: a retrospective review at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria

INTRODUCTION: Incidence of urethral stricture recurrence ranges between 2% to 36.4% with 75% occurring within the first 6 months of surgery. Hence, they need to identify the predictors of recurrence following urethroplasty. METHODS: This is a retrospective study involving patients that had urethroplasty from January 2008 to December 2017. Patients' records were reviewed. Analyzed data were for patients with a minimum follow up of one year from the time of urethroplasty and included aetiology of urethral stricture, presence of suprapubic cystostomy, prior urethral dilatation, urine M/C/S, site of urethral stricture, length of urethral stricture, type of urethroplasty, level of training of the surgeon, type of urethral stent used and duration of stenting. Analysis was done using SPSS version 23. P-value of < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: Eighty seven urethroplasties were done, from January 2008 to December 2017. However, only records of 44 patients were accessible. Twenty patients completed duration of follow up ≥ one year. Urethral stricture recurrence was defined as resurgence of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (LUTS) within one year. Median age of the patients was 39.5 (± 19) years. Urethral stricture recurrence rate was 25% with mean time to recurrence from urethroplasty of 5.3 (±3) months. The use of preoperative suprapubic catheter (SPC) for urinary diversion as well as urethroplasties performed by the consultants had a lower incidence of recurrence. CONCLUSION: This study found urethral stricture recurrence of 25%. The level of training of surgeon vis-à-vis the expertise and experience seems to be an important factor, though not statistically significant in determining the outcome of urethroplasty.