Urethral strictures

Urethral strictures are common and almost all urologists will deal with them on a regular if not daily basis. They have always been common and the history of the subject stretches back to 3,000 BC. Urethral dilators have been found in the tombs of the pharaohs so that they might be able to catheterize themselves or dilate their own strictures in the afterlife. Urethrotomy and dilatation are two of the most frequently performed procedures in urology. But these are usually only palliative, and curative treatment by urethroplasty is performed by very few urologists. In part this is because most strictures are bulbar strictures and most non-bulbar strictures are seen only by reconstructive urologists; but in part this represents a somewhat ambivalent attitude of most urologists to urethral stricture disease. In this chapter, we will attempt to clarify the current approach to this problem.