complications of hypospadias Archives - Page 2 of 3

January 01 2020

Dr A.K.Singal presents his work at Hypospadias World Congress at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, USA

Hypospadias Foundation starts Clinic for Hypospadias Treatment & Surgery in Bahrain

Dr A.K.Singal was an invited speaker at Hypospadias World Congress at Children’s Research Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, USA, held between 30^th October 2019-1^st Nov 2019. Dr Singal presented four papers on hypospadias treatment and moderated scientific sessions during the conference.

The conference saw participation from more than 150 pediatric urologists and hypospadias specialists from across the world. The conference solely focussed on hypospadias. Various aspects of hypospadias were discussed such as etiology, diagnosis, hormonal tests and supplementation (testosterone injections), surgery techniques and complications/ results of hypospadias surgeries.

Dr A.K.Singal

Dr Singal with Dr Long & Dr Zaontz

Dr Singal presented the following lectures and papers in the World Congress:

Buccal inlay graft for failed hypospadias- Dr Singal showed technique of buccal (oral) mucosa graft inlay surgery and its results in failed hypospadias cases.
Considerations in adult hypospadias repairs- Adult hypospadias are difficult to manage especially if the surgery done in childhood has failed. Dr Singal showed innovative surgery techniques for such adult hypospadias cases for best outcomes.
Reimagined Byar’s flaps for staged hypospadias repairs- For hypospadias with severe chordee, it is important that the penile curvature gets fully corrected in first stage and then second stage surgery is done for bringing the urethra to the tip of penis. In expert hands the results of two stage surgery for hypospadias with severe chordee is very good. Dr Singal showed finer nuances of surgery to achieve best results to the audience.
Parental Awareness survey for families with hypospadias: Families of children or adults with hypospadias are often not fully aware of the extent of disease and what it means in the long run. Dr Singal and his team conducted a study of 150 families to understand about their concerns about hypospadias and their knowledge level about the disease/ surgery.

Overall the three-day conference resulted in great mutual exchange of ideas and also helped younger generation of surgeons learn from eminent faculty from all over the world.

January 01 2020

A small complication in hypospadias surgery does not mean the end of the road: Surgeon and Family must work together

Hypospadias Foundation starts Clinic for Hypospadias Treatment & Surgery in Bahrain

Let me begin by saying: Hypospadias Repair surgery is not an easy surgery.

It takes a surgeon years to perfect the art and craft of hypospadias surgery. Every single slice of knife, every single snip of scissors, every single stitch holds the key to a successful hypospadias repair. Inspite of all this, sometimes the results of hypospadias surgery may be suboptimal. The reasons for this are many. Besides an undertrained surgeon or poor equipment or expertise, sometimes the healing after hypospadias surgery is unpredictable. Even after hypospadias surgery, the penis has erections every night, putting the repair at little bit of stress. There may be minor infection, or the child may be nutritionally deficient in micronutrients leading to poor healing. Even if these factors are controlled, individual healing is still very variable phenomenon, leading to a small rate of complications even in expert hands. In best hypospadias centres, hypospadias complications dip to less than 5% for distal hypospadias and less than 15% for severe hypospadias.

Any complication which happens can be disheartening for the family, the child as well as for the hypospadias surgeon. Surgeons particularly get emotionally disturbed and keep thinking about it even when they go back home and more so the surgeons who are sensitive. We as surgeons forget out 95% successes and keep carrying the burden of our complications back to our homes and our families, even the minor things haunt us. Though we may keep a strong face on the exterior, much required, inside we suffer every time something doesn’t go well. Hence, we keep striving for better and better results.

Dr A.K.Singal, Pediatric Urologist India

Well coming back to the point- One of the most common complications of hypospadias surgery is Urethral Fistula formation. Having a complication such as fistula is not the end of the road. If the family has faith and the surgeon is experienced, urethral fistula can be managed easily with a minor second surgery in most of the cases.

I wish to share one story sent by the parents on an email to us and without any changes. The family came to us from Pune to Navi Mumbai for hypospadias treatment. Here we go:

It was indeed the happiest day of our lives when we welcomed our little bundle of joy; but soon after our son was born, the paediatrician informed us the baby is having a condition called Hypospadias with chordee albeit the degree of both the conditions was really minor, yet requiring surgery. The term Hypospadias was unheard of until then by us as well as seniors in the family. It was so devastating for us to know that the little one is already scheduled for the surgery – especially on such delicate place – before even he is a month old. Although the surgery was never life threatening and was elective in nature, as parents we were extremely nervous and anxious. Like every anxious parent, we too googled about the condition – which helped us understand better about hypospadias – before taking the next step of seeing the surgeon. Here in Pune, we did meet at least 2-3 paediatric surgeons (not the urologists or who specialise in hypospadias surgery). A senior doctor suggested 2 surgeries even for this minor hypospadias. Later we met 2-3 more doctors who suggested various methods be it keeping baby hospitalised for 7 to 10 days with medicines administered through IV lines or keeping the baby open after catheterization plus keeping his legs tied to each other in order to avoid dislodgement of catheter when he moves his legs; not to mention we were extremely petrified after meeting all these doctors as they were not at all empathetic not cordial. Not unexpectedly we were not convinced with any of the doctors as through google we already had understood that the condition can be treated as a day care surgery and babies are managed on oral medicines and in double diapers. Here, no doctor was talking about diaper and taking the baby home next day if not the same day. With due to respect to these doctors, we didn’t want to go ahead with the doctor with whom we were not comfortable with whatever little knowledge we have had gathered on this subject. The question of finding the right doctor was still there. Again, while googling we could get to know that there could be doctors who specialise as paediatric urologists and have vast experience of treating the babies / kids with hypospadias. Thanks to google and age of internet we found Dr. A.K. Singal.

The day we met Dr. Singal:

By the time we met Dr. Singal, our son was already 5 months old. After meeting Dr. Singal we realised why things didn’t move ahead with the previous doctors. Meeting Dr. Singal was so up to the mark as he explained the condition in detail, what he will be doing in the operation theatre and how the baby will be managed post-surgery. He was not only empathetic but also cordial and could understand what exactly the parents must be going through when their little ones must go through the surgery at very young age. His attitude was very positive. We had met the doctor we were looking for. Needless to say, we were so convinced and decided to go ahead with the surgery by Dr. AK Singal. He confirmed that both the defects would be covered in one surgery and the chances of any complications could be considered up to 2-3%. The age he suggested for the surgery was between 6 to 9 months. We took our own time to decide on the date of surgery and scheduled it when he was 14 months old. In the meanwhile, we met Dr. Singal twice with the doubts that we had. Each time he was very cordial in explaining the doubts in detail.

On the day of Surgery:

It was finally the day of the surgery. Nevertheless, we knew that the surgery is going to be for baby’s own good, yet our hearts were in the mouth. The doctor, as well the staff are so good that they would cater to every alarm by an extra-anxious and sensitive parent like me. The surgery went well, and the baby was brought back to the room. He was sleeping most of the day but when he opened his eyes I missed my heartbeat in the anticipation that he, now, would feel pain and the soreness; but to our surprise, he did not have any post-surgical pain on that day and any following day thereafter till the wound was healing. He was at his playful best by the next morning of surgery. He was kept in double diapers i.e. a hole was made in the inner diaper through which catheter was brought out and left to drain in the outer diaper. This method provides a cushion to the operated site, avoids catheter getting pulled accidently and makes it easy for parents to carry the child. Doctor suggested us to go home the next day, but we decided to continue for one more day for the betterment of the child. The nurses were so attentive and very cordial. After removal of the dressing and catheter, unfortunately our son caught the infection at the operated site which resulted in an extremely tiny fistula, which could not be spotted unless seen with the extreme care. This fistula was so tiny that the urine would come out from it in a drop or two. Later, as he was growing the urine output from the fistula grew to multiple drops.

Next appointments with the doctor:

Despite our son developed the fistula, our faith in the doctor never faded away as we were sure that doctor must have done his job with 100% care, and it was our and our baby’s fate to have the complication. The doctor never rushed and pushed us for the second surgery. He was hopeful that this tiny fistula can be healed on its own over the course of time; but the misfortune may have it, the fistula never healed, and worsened with the age by the end of year 2018. We had no choice but to put him through yet another surgery. This time as well the same protocols were followed and now our son is doing good after relatively minor second surgery.

Notes for the parents:

Please do your research when your little one requires any kind of surgery.
Have your questions ready so that you don’t miss any of them while you see the doctor
Trust your vibes. Don’t go ahead with the doctor unless you’re 100% convinced.
Get all your doubts cleared before you schedule your little one for the surgery
Take a note of your baby’s food habits and arrange for them well in advance, especially if you are an intercity / interstate / international patient. Carry sufficient (or maybe surplus) supplies during this crucial time as the baby / child can be cranky due to change in schedule and nonetheless due to procedure.
Carry his / her favourite toys, as that can sooth them.
Engage them with cartoon videos
Most importantly, however low and stressed you feel, never show baby /child your emotions and keep the spirit high. This is a tough time which too shall pass, just hang in there.
Follow medicine schedule very promptly. Be on top of the pain. Be very punctual when to comes to medicine schedule.
Be vigilant but don’t panic, call the hospital if you are not sure what to do?

Hope this story helped the families out there in some way. The lessons from the story can help both the surgeon and the family in having faith in the worst of times.

Take care and god bless.

Dr Singal

July 07 2015

Single stage hypospadias repair surgery video for a child with failed hypospadias: Nagpur to Vellore to Navi Mumbai, India

Like every other surgery, hypospadias correction surgery has its own risks, complications and failures. Inspite of the best intentions and efforts of the parents and the treating hypospadias surgeon, still the results may be sub-optimal after the first surgery. Though at the end of hypospadias surgery in OT it may seem that the surgery has gone very well, sometimes there may be minor complications which necessitate a second surgery for hypospadias in some children. The rate of second surgery for a complication or failure of first hypospadias surgery decrease with the expertise and experience of the hypospadias surgeon but it is never zero and that is an important thing for the parents and families to understand.

When the first surgery for hypospadias fails, parents get very disturbed and start looking for more information on why it happened and the solutions and second opinion for hypospadias to help fix the problem. Most of the times, the primary surgeon may be the best person to solve the problem but sometimes the complication may be severe and in such cases the patient should be referred to a centre of excellence in hypospadias surgery.

While minor problems like fistula or cosmetic issues can be treated easily with as second minor surgery- major complications of hypospadias surgery such as urethral breakdown, dehiscence, urethral diverticulum or stricture may require more complicated or even a staged repair with grafts. Hence, the dictum- that first surgery for hypospadias is the best surgery- further surgery if the first one fails is always more difficult and challenging.

At Hypospadias Foundation, we regularly receive kids and adults from all over India and other countries who have had a failed hypospadias surgery elsewhere. Families request for a second opinion for the hypospadias treatment and we advise them comprehensively. Some of these cases really benefit from the specialist care offered by a dedicated hypospadias team.

Case Story

Master A.G., a 3 years old boy, resident of Nagpur, underwent a surgery for a proximal penile hypospadias surgery at a hospital in Vellore. Unfortunately, the healing was not optimal and the whole repair had a breakdown. After 6 months of previous surgery, the family wrote to us and visited us at our centre in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. On examination, the child has proximal penile meatus with mild chordee. There was a remnant of foreskin (prepuce) on the underside of penis. There was no foreskin left on the topside of penis. We explained to the parents that this may require a two stage repair but we will try out best to make a flap from the residual foreskin and do the surgery in one stage.

Finally after pre-surgery tests and fitness assessments, we took the child for redo-hypospadias surgery. We could make a nice onlay flap out of the foreskin remnant by carefully dissecting the blood supply and preserving the supply to this flap skin. The flap was used to make the new urethra in one stage as it can be seen in the video below. The surgery took about 3 hours and the child was allowed feeds four hours after surgery. The dressing was removed after 7 days and catheter after 10 days. The hypospadias site healed very well and the child was examined again after 1 month. He was passing urine well in a single stream from the tip of penis. Now, 6 months after hypospadias repair, A.G. continues to do well and his parents are very happy and we are also overjoyed to achieve a good result in this challenging failed hypospadias case. The detailed hypospadias surgery video can be watched by clicking below. Besides the story mentioned here, the video below shows another child story from Raipur, Chattisgarh where the first surgery resulted in a penile torsion and a large fistula. The child underwent a successful single stage surgery at Hypospadias Foundation:

Watch Video of Failed Hypospadias surgery by Dr A.K.Singal

If you or your loved one has hypospadias and wish to seek an opinion, please write to us at hypospadiasfoundationindia@gmail.com or contact Dr Rajkumar- Coordinator at +91-9821261448 between 10 am-5pm India Time.

You can also fill up this contact form: Contact Hypospadias Foundation

or come to MITR Hospital in person after taking an appointment by sending an email at frontdesk@mitrhospital.com or calling up at +91-22-27743558/ 4229 or +91-9324180553

Watch Video of proximal penile hypospadias correction by Dr A.K.Singal

Watch Video of scrotal hypospadias repair by Dr A.K.Singal

Watch video of Distal penile hypospadias repair by Dr A.K.Singal

April 04 2015

Successful result in a failed hypospadias repair: Boy from Gandhinagar (Gujarat) visits Hypospadias Foundation for a follow-up 5 years after surgery

Hypospadias remains the most common urological abnormality affecting more than 1 lakh kids in India alone (based on incidence of 1/150 in newborn boys). Leaving aside very minor hypospadias without chordee- almost 70-80% of these require hypospadias treatment in form of repair surgery in early childhood.

For a child with Hypospadias, the first surgery is always the best surgery but still there can be complications and failure even in expert hands though complications are much less if operated by a surgeon or a centre where there is a focused practice in treating children with hypospadias. Literature and experts suggest that if a hypospadias surgeon is doing more than 50 hypospadias repairs in a year, then his results will be better and more predictable as compared to a general pediatric surgeon or a urologist who does only 10-20 hypospadias repairs in a year. Once a hypospadias surgery fails, then the next surgeries become more difficult and result more unpredictable. The failure rate of hypospadias surgeries vary from 5% to 50% depending on the type and severity of hypospadias in general centres and less than 10% in centres where hypospadias surgeries are done by expert hypospadias surgeons on a day to day basis.

Case details

Master A.P. was born with a distal penile hypospadias and underwent first surgery in Ahmedabad at the age of 6 years. Unfortunately, the surgery failed and he started passing urine from the same place on the underside of penis- a fistula. The new urinary passage through the head of the penis got tight and closed off. The surgeon tried to open it many times by catheter insertion but it failed. Coupled with failed hypospadias, the child also had an unsatisfactory cosmetic appearance in form of bunching of skin on underside of penis. With this situation they contacted Dr A.K.Singal, Pediatric urologist and expert Hypospadias surgeon at Hypospadias foundation in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai when the boy was ten years of age. After examining and confirming that the whole urinary pipe will have to be remade from distal penile region to the tip of penis (glans), Dr Singal advised a Onlay island flap repair for which the flap would be raised from the nearby bunched up skin. This repair is technically challenging because of previous failed hypospadias surgery but this was the only chance for the boy to have a single stage repair. The surgery for failed hypospadias was finished in 2 hours and A.P. was ready for discharge the next day but since they had travelled all the way from Gujarat, they decided to stay for 7-8 days in Navi Mumbai. The catheter was removed on day7 and he passed urine well from the tip. For the first one month after surgery, there were some chances of new opening getting tight, hence we taught the boy to insert a small catheter just 1cm into the new opening with an antibiotic ointment. The penis healed well in next 3 months and he has remained free of all symptoms now for last 5 years. At 15 years of age and after his 10^th standard exams, A.P visited us and had a big smile on his face. He is looking forward to higher education and he shared with us his dreams and further education goals. We plan to see him again one last time at 18 years of age. His penis growth and his functional & cosmetic outcome has been excellent so far.

Dr A.K.Singal with the patient

Letter of thanks from the father:

Dear Dr Singal,

My son A.P was operated first at Ahmedabad. The hypospadias problem was not solved and it actually worsened and we were very tense my son’s future life. While searching through internet I came to know about you and your colleague doctors.

From your past surgeries and mastery about Hypospadia surgeries we decided and contacted you before surgery. At Mitr hospital, from the first meeting with you, we were confident about our son’s second Hypospadias surgery and we decided to do it only with you.

At Mitr Hospital, we experienced very good pre and after surgery treatment from Doctors and staff also, very good and polite staff. At Gujarat we don’t have such experienced and professional hospital staff. I think this is also very important besides doctors. I feel that if the doctors are not confident they must not try and go ahead for these type of surgeries because once it is fails, the situation of patient and his family is unbearable. It creates psychological problems also and these can be very stressful to handle. Thanks to your team, my son is doing well now.

Regards

M.P., Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

About Failed Hypospadias repair:

When the hypospadias surgery fails, it is a moment of distress and lot of anguish for the parents. Even the doctors feel terrible because they know that even a hypospadias surgery which has been done well doesn’t mean that everything will heal also well. There are many variable factors which affect healing and hence, complications of hypospadias surgery happen sometimes even in best of hypospadias surgeon’s hands. The only difference being that when an expert hypospadias surgeon does the surgery, the chances of complications decreases drastically. And even if the complications happen, they can be managed well without any panic or long lasting impact.

The complications which may need second surgery are: urethral fistula, tight urethra (stenosis or urethral stricture), residual curvature (chordee), dehiscence (complete breakdown or partial breakdown), diverticulum, penile torsion or an unsatisfactory cosmetic outcome. Once it is ascertained that a second surgery is indeed needed for hypospadias, it is important to wait for 5-6 months before planning the next surgery.

About Dr A.K.Singal

Dr A.K.Singal is a well known Pediatric Urologist and one of the best hypospadias surgeons in India. Every year under his care in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai, more than 150 children undergo hypospadias treatment. More than 50 of these are children who have failed hypospadias surgery done elsewhere. With his deep understanding and experience, Dr Singal and his team are able to offer care and cure to these children. He can be contacted at hypospadiasfoundationindia@gmail.com or you can call his Assistant Doctor – Dr Rajkumar at 98212161448 if you wish to take a second opinion for a failed hypospadias surgery. Else you can fill up this contact form:

Contact Dr A.K.Singal

Previous page 1 2 3 Next page

Tag Archives: complications of hypospadias