Outcome of Delayed Perineal Anastomotic Urethroplasty in Children with Post-Traumatic Urethral Stricture in a Tertiary Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Urethral stricture is a challenging urologic problem resulting from congenital, idiopathic, traumatic, iatrogenic,and inflammatory causes. Road traffic accidents and falling-down accidents are the most common traumatic causes. Although most management principles are extrapolated from adults, stricture in children has a unique anatomic challenge. The outcome of urethroplasty is reported to be good in nearly all patients according to different studies. Since there is no study from Ethiopia on this subject, our work will show our experience with the problem. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of children who underwent delayed urethroplasty for post-traumatic urethral stricture from November 2011 to November 2019. A retrospective study was conducted on boys for whom delayed perineal anastomotic urethroplasty was performed after they sustained trauma. Sociodemographic data, pre-operative presentation of patients, and intraoperative conditions were assessed. The need of any further procedure to micturate, stream of urine and urethral caliber on post-operative cystourethrography were parameters used to measure the outcome. Data were entered into SPSS version 24 and analyzed, taking a p-value of 0.05 as statistically significant. RESULTS: Nineteen boys had delayed perineal anastomotic urethroplasty in the study period, with a mean age at the time of surgery being 9.8 years. Out of these 19 patients, nine had been involved in road traffic accidents, eight had fallen from a height, and two had bullet injuries. The membranous urethra was the most commonly affected part and, in seven of them, associated pelvic bone fracture was documented. The affected urethral segment length ranged from 1–3 cm, with a mean of 1.77 cm. For all of them delayed perineal urethroplasty was performed after a minimum of 3 months. Successful outcome after primary surgery and re-do surgery was 58% and 82%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Urethral stricture is an uncommon condition in children but is one of the challenging conditions a pediatric urologist faces. Our study showed that perineal urethroplasty can be done safely in most children with urethral stricture, but unless adequate pre-operative evaluation and strict surgical principles are followed the outcome will be poor.