Redo pelvic fracture urethral injury repair: The case for tadalafil

To define the role of tadalafil in improving outcomes of redo urethroplasty for pelvic fracture urethral injury (PFUI). PFUI is common in developing countries, invariably as a result of road traffic trauma. Repair is complex, and redo cases are even more challenging.

This was a longitudinal prospective nonrandomized study between 2017 and 2019. Men undergoing redo-urethroplasty were nonrandomized into two groups. Group 1 received tadalafil 5 mg the next day after surgery and continued for 3 months, and group 2 did not receive tadalafil. Inclusion criteria were patients undergoing redo-urethroplasty willing to trial low-dose tadalafil post-operatively. Exclusion criteria were <18 years, females, primary cases, and complex cases such as recto-urethral fistula. Average follow-up was 19.5 months.

Sixty patients were enrolled (29 in group 1 and 31 in group 2). Mean age was 31 years. These patients had 1-3 prior failed urethroplasties. Most required step 3 anastomotic urethroplasty (68.3%). Success was defined as absence of symptoms and no need for surgical intervention. Failure was defined as redo urethroplasty or >1 endoscopic intervention. Primary success was 83.3%. Success with tadalafil was 96.6%, compared to 71.0% in the non-Tadalafil group (P ¼ .0008). Only one patient on tadalafil failed, compared with nine in the non-tadalafil group. Secondary success rate was defined as the need for a single subsequent endoscopic intervention and was 93.3%.

In our series, there was improved outcome with using tadalafil in patients having redo urethroplasty for PFUI. Further trials should be done to evaluate the use in all PFUI cases.