Point of focus: poor genital hygiene and terminal urethral strictures

Males attending the urology clinic with strictures of the terminal urethra were studied. Evident frank balanoposthitis, subpreputial calculi and infected urine in the preputial sac were seen in a sizable number, 35% of them were suffering from a second urethral stricture also, either in continuity over the whole length of the penile urethra or in the bulbomembranous area. Balanitis xerotica obliterans was responsible for those terminal urethral strictures in nearly 20%. All patients required terminal urethroplasty in addition to appropriate surgical procedures for other stigmata. Knowledge and sense of hygiene of the genitalia were lacking in most of the patients.