[Pneumatic dilatation of urethral stenosis]

We report on a series of 32 patients with urethral strictures of different etiology, site, and morphology that were submitted to treatment by balloon dilatation. The results achieved corroborate the usefulness of this procedure. It is easy to perform and there are no complications. Furthermore, it affords economic advantages since it can be performed with simple local anesthesia on an outpatient basis. For all the foregoing reasons, we believe that balloon dilatation is a useful procedure in the treatment of urethral strictures that permits raising the success rate in well-selected cases of urethral strictures untreated previously by other surgical procedures. Balloon dilatation and endoscopic internal urethrotomy are the procedures of choice in the treatment of a vast majority of strictures.