Factors Associated with Urethral and Bladder Neck Stricture After Transurethral Resection of the Prostate

Urethral and bladder neck stricture (U/BNS) is a complication that occurs in up to 9% of patients following transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP). The most relevant risk factors reported are prolonged surgical duration and prostatic volume. The purpose of this study is to analyze risk factors associated with the development of U/BNS following TURP. Case-control study. Population: patients who underwent TURP. Cases: patients with U/BNS following TURP, diagnosed between January 2010 and December 2018. We included patients with obstructive symptoms after TURP with clinical or radiographical evidence of U/BNS. Controls were patients who underwent TURP between January 2016 and December 2017, without evidence of stricture. Patients with history of pelvic fracture and previous U/BNS were excluded. We analyzed as risk factors age, prostatic volume, diabetes mellitus, previous use of transurethral catheter, urinary tract infection, bladder calculi, prostate cancer, previous TURP, resection time, resected volume during TURP, transoperative complications, and number of surgical procedures performed during the same event. We used chi-square or Mann-Whitney's U test for between-group comparison; association was established by odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (CI), variables with p < 0.05 were included in the logistic regression. We included 101 cases and 207 controls. Cases had lower incidence of prostate cancer, smaller prostates, less resection time during TURP, lower grams resected and prostate-specific antigen values than controls. History of transurethral catheter was more frequent in controls than cases (46% vs 29%, p = 0.004); there were no differences between groups in the other factors analyzed. On multivariate analysis, the use of a transurethral catheter was a protective factor against U/BNS (OR 0.16, 95% CI 0.064-0.442, p < 0.001). In this study, the use of urethral catheter before TURP is a protective factor against U/BNS.