Don’t give up hope on Failed Hypospadias

This is an interesting and inspiring story and I thought I will share it with everyone who has an interest in the field of hypospadias.

About 6 months back, a 14 years old boy was brought all the way from Nasik to my Pediatric Urology clinic at MITR Hospital in kharghar, Navi Mumbai. The parents did not seem to very well educated and were from a farming background. The father was in some class 4 government job. I was wondering why they would travel for 8 hours to a small place like kharghar to see me. Also the age seemed to me a little bit older than the usual age which I see in my clinic. I was intrigued.

The boy seemed little uncomfortable and had furtive glances here and there. Parents and relatives were fidgety too. The consultation began – I asked what brought them to Kharghar. They said that their kid has hypospadias and has undergone 5 surgeries till now but still passes urine from below. I asked them “how did they find me”. They said maternal uncle of the boy knows internet and found me while looking for information about hypospadias. So there it was Internet the great enabler at play.

I went through the case records dating 10 years back. The kid was born with scrotal hypospadias and underwent first major surgery at 2 years of age to straighten the penis (chordee correction) at a top medical college at Mumbai. Post that there were multiple attempts to make a new passage initially using native penile skin and then lining of urinary bladder twice and finally skin graft. Everything had failed and the last surgery was about 5 years back when it was told that there is no hope of the boy having a normal urethral opening at tip of penis. Now I knew the reason of furtive glances and fidgety mannerisms.

On examination, the boy had the urinary opening right near the anus, the penis was still slightly bent (chordee) and there was lots of scarring on underside of penis with deep pits and ragged skin edges. Further there seemed to be a couple of blind passages and left testis also looked higher in position, may be it was caught up in the scar process. Since the opening was even behind the scrotum, the child had to sit in the toilet and pass urine. Overall, the case seemed like mother of all hypospadias.

I counseled the parents and set out a planned staged correction of hypospadias. I told them it will be tough and they will need to be patient and have faith.  The plan was to bring him back to his original anatomy first and the reconstruct the entire new urinary passage. As the first stage, I planned to remove all the scarred skin and straighten the penis. In the raw area thus created I was planning to put buccal mucosa graft which is nothing but the inner layer of skin inside the mouth more specifically lips and cheeks. This buccal mucosa graft takes about 3-4 months to heal and then we planned to use this patch to create a new urinary passage. This would give a sure result and the buccal mucosa graft being moist and soft would not have any issues being in touch with urine. Also there would be no hair growth inside the passage in the future.

Well, the parents were convinced because probably I was the first hypospadias surgeon to offer them any hope. So we all set out on our task, an uphill journey.

We took up VW for first stage surgery – expecting about 4 hours of surgical time. But we ended up consuming about 7 hours by doing the following

• Cystoscopy and ascertaining usable urethral passage
• Excision of all scar tissue on underside of penis
• Straightening the penis – chordee correction
• Closing the perineal urethrostomy and establishing a penoscrotal meatus.
• Correcting the penoscrotal transposition
• Left orchioexy was needed as the left testis was caught in the fibrosis
• Buccal mucosa graft

But we were satisfied at the end of it all. We could not think of a shortcut as the child had been through a lot. The child remained in the hospital for 7 days and the graft healed very well. At removal of catheter, he was able to pass urine from the penoscrotal meatus without difficulty and was finally able to stand up and pass urine without wetting his pants. I could see the change in his behavior and he seemed more interactive now with me and the hospital staff. We had moved forward by an inch I guess!

4 months later we admitted him again for second stage urethroplasty. The previous graft had healed very well. We could easily make a new urethra just rolling the previous graft plate. This was done over a 12 French silicone catheter without any stress. To ensure full healing we also used a tunica vaginalis graft from the right testis to cover up the suture line.

As I write, the child has finished one month follow-up after urethroplasty surgery and is recovering well from the surgery. He is passing urine currently from the tip meaning the repair is holding well. The final result is yet to be seen and may be another minor procedure may be needed but the journey has been great. Our mood is upbeat and we are sure that we will reach the destination this time or another short journey may be needed 3 months from now. The fact of the matter is that we enjoyed the journey.

It is challenges like these when everyone else has given up, we still gear up and try to do our best for these kids. We may not pass in one attempt but eventually we will. Even if 20% need another surgery that is still acceptable as the final goal can still be achieved.