Oral Mucosa vs. Penile Skin Flap in Substitution Urethroplasty for Anterior Urethral Strictures: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness and safety of oral mucosa and penile skin flaps in the treatment of anterior urethral stricture. Methods: This meta-analysis was carried out according to the principle of preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) and registered at PROSPERO (CRD42021277688). The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, CKNI databases were searched and reviewed up to Sep 2021. Quality evaluation was performed with Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) system for non-randomized studies and Cochrane stools for randomized studies. Data synthesis was conducted with RevMan 5.4 software (Cochrane) and a Stata 15.0 environment (Stata Corpor, College Station, TX, USA). Results: After the research screening, eight studies (comprising 445 patients) were finally included in the quantitative analysis. In the success rate comparison, there was no significant difference between oral mucosa and penile skin flaps (oral mucosa vs. penile skin flap, Mantel-Haenszel statistic [M-H] fixed model, OR: 0.80, 95% CI: 0.47–1.34, P = 0.39). There was no significant difference in the post-operative complication comparison (oral mucosa vs. penile skin flap, Mantel-Haenszel statistic [M-H] fixed model, OR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.40–1.16, P = 0.15). However, considering that the site of oral mucosa is far from the anterior urethra, it may have advantages in operation time through simultaneous operations (oral mucosa vs. penile skin flap, MD: −40.05, 95% CI: −79.42, −0.68, P = 0.046). Conclusion: When the oral mucosal graft was used in the anterior urethra urethroplasty, it had a similar success rate and post-operative complication rate, and oral mucosa substitution had a shorter operation time. This evidence-based medical research further supports the view that oral mucosa is the preferred substitution material for the anterior urethra urethroplasty.