Autologous buccal mucosa harvest under local anesthesia: Feasibility, safety, and acceptance for substitution urethroplasty

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study is to report our experience with buccal mucosa harvest under local anesthetic agent infiltration for urethroplasty. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All patients who had buccal mucosa graft harvest under local anesthesia (1% Xylocaine) for repair of their urethral stricture, from January 2007 to December 2016, were retrospectively studied from two public urologic service centers. The demographic data of the patient, length of graft harvested, complications recorded, among other things, were entered into a pro forma and the data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 16. RESULTS: A total of 102 patients underwent urethroplasty with buccal mucosa harvested under local anesthesia; however, only 88 patients had complete data for analysis. The mean age was 55.03 years (±12.30). The mean harvested graft length was 5.41 cm (±2.62 cm). There was no need for conversion to general anesthesia. The majority of them (94.3%) reported that it was “easy” or “very easy” to maintain the mouth opened during the procedure. Over 91% do not have difficulty opening their mouth after the harvest. Only a patient had bothersome primary hemorrhage that required gauze packing. No significant oral cavity pain was experience in 69.3% of patients; among those with pain, the perineal pain was more. Over 90% of the patients will be willing to undergo the procedure again under local anesthetic infiltration again. CONCLUSION: Buccal mucosa harvest under local anesthesia infiltration is feasible, safe, and acceptable among our patients who had urethroplasty for urethral stricture disease.