Modified versus Classical Tubularised Incised Plate Urethroplasty in Hypospadias: A Comparative Study

Hypospadias is a wide-world congenital malformation that accounts for 1 of 300 live male births. Many procedures were considered for its management. As the tubularised incised plate (TIP) urethroplasty, the most prevalent technique, caused many complications, several modifications were applied to the original operation to improve the outcomes and alleviate complications. The aim of this study was to compare the outcome of the ordinary TIP urethroplasty with the technique modified without dissection of the glans penis.

A total of 82 patients with a mean age of 18.8 (±14.8) months, were randomly assigned to undergo TIP with either complete glans wings mobilisation (Group A, n = 42 patients) or without glans dissection (Group B, n = 40 patients). To evaluate the effect of modified TIP urethroplasty without glanular dissection for treatment of distal hypospadias in contrast to classical TIP repair.

Both techniques showed similar outcomes regarding functional repair, with good to excellent results between 88% and 90% after 6 months of follow-up. Most confronted post-operative complications were wound infection, oedema, urethrocutaneous fistulas and meatal stenosis. Less frequently haematoma, post-operative bleeding and glans dehiscence were encountered. The differences in complication rates between the two studied groups were statistically insignificant except for oedema (P = 0.04), and need for urethral dilatation (P = 0.002) that were more prevalent among patients who were treated with classic TIP repair with complete glans wings mobilisation.

From our point of view, it seems that TIP without glanular dissection technique does not outweigh TIP with complete glans wings mobilisation regarding functional outcomes and post-operative complications.