The role of intermittent self-dilation in recurrent urethral stricture at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka

This study was carried out to evaluate the role of intermittent self-dilatation (ISD) in patients with recurrent urethral stricture disease at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. The study was carried out over a period of 18 months starting in January 2002. The details of the technique used and patient selection are described. Two groups were compared. The first group 36 clients performed ISD while the other group 45 clients did not. Both groups were compared in everything except for ISD. They all had either undergone urethral dilatation or optic urethrotomy. The age range was 19-75years (mean 47years). The causes were post infective (29 clients 80.6%), post traumatic (3 clients 8.3%) or unknown (4 clients 11.1%). One client from the first group (ISD) had clinical evidence of recurrence at the end of the study. There were 15 (33.3%) recurrences from the second group (those who did not perform ISD) had recurrent stricture during the same period of time. One defaulter developed a stricture at six months. The study shows that intermittent self-dilatation is effective reducing the rate of stricture recurrence following urethral dilatation or optic urethrotomy. We highly recommend that this procedure be done for clients with post infective urethral stricture after intermittent urethral dilatation or optic urethrotomy.