Urethra Stricture treated with Steriod Injections

hi Saiyuki, I was diagnosed with stricture in very similar location at the orifice tip (meatus), and also next to the bladder neck, but was never mentioned the steriods option. I will most probably have to widen my stritches at the orifice tip very soon with urethrotomy, and with in mind recurrence issue, also considering urethroplasty.... If I may ask where abouts are you based, I m in Sydney, Australia, and being treated by a fairly good reconstruction urologist.

as your specialist mentioned in case of recurrency you would need

an SPC procedure prior to perform Urethroplasty (of course if needed)

is it lichen sclerosus causing your stricture ?

Thank you all for the replies. My stricture was not caused by lichen sclerosus. It mostly likely occurred from an injury that I was unaware of and overtime scarring formed. No infections were found. Besides the stricture, the rest of my urethera is healthy. I am located in New York. Unfortunately, I think urethotomy needs to be accompanied by some other procedure in order to have great long term results. When you think about it, urethotomy just cuts the scarr tissue to provide quick relief but it doesn't really treat the real culprit which is the formation of the scarr tissue itself. Each time the scar tissue is cut, your body is naturally going to want to heal the scarr tissue as well as the wound which causes more scarr tissue to form. Thus, the problem reoccurs. After doing a lot of research, it seems the injection of steriods at the area can help in preventing your body from doing so or at most, delay the formation even longer. There are also instances when scarr tissue may form after the procedure but your urethera would not be narrow as it was before. Thus, you may not need any more operations to treat the issue but have it checked out every few months to ensure that it remains open. As with any procedure, this will not work for everyone but I think it does provide better odds in having long term success with urethrotomy. Another thing I would like to mention are catheters and how they can potentially worsen the problem depending on the material they are made out of. I've read that catheters made out of latex compared to silicone have a higher chance of irritating the lining of the urethera which may cause more strictures to occu r in the future. This is a conversial topic since there hasn't much evidence to support this but I plan to ask if I can have a silicone cathether instead of a latex based one just to be safe. In all honesty, I wish the use of a catheter was not needed at all for this procedure since the tissue between the urethera, prostate and bladder is so sensitive. Literally, a minor cut within any of these areas can cause massive discomfort and other issues in the future.

One of my replies is awaiting moderation since it included a link to a website that showcases a new procedure used to treat urethera strictures. Unlike other less invasive treatments, this one is designed to provide long term results. The procedure is called Optilume. It was developed by a company called Urotronic. If you search, "Urotronic" on Google and click on the first search result link, it should bring you to their homepage which provides details about the procedure. Currently, it is undergoing many trials and awaiting FDA approval. The results of its first trial makes me very excited for the future. Its first trial took place in the Dominican Republic and Panama. It was performed on men who have had either one or two prior stricture treatments. I was unable to find how many men were apart of the trial but of those who did get the procedure, only 76% of them had a reoccurrence after 6 months. This is amazing knowing that if they did standard dilation or had another urethrotomy, about 80% percent of them would have had a reoccurrence in 6 months. I wonder how successful this procedure would have been if this was used as a first treatment option for new urethera stricture patients. Assuming that the other trials go as well as its first, I honestly can't wait for this procedure to be used world wide.