Benign urachus abnormalities: embryology, diagnosis and treatments

Urachus pathologies are very rare but require to be known by urologists. Lack of appropriate treatment exposes the patients to the risks of symptoms recurrence, infectious complications or adenocarcinomatous degeneration. A partial or total defect of obliteration of the urachus channel after the fifth month of gestation can be at the origin of four benign pathologies. The ombilicovesical fistula (47.6%) is diagnosed at the native period. In the adult, the most frequent form is the cyst (30.7%) whereas the external (16.4%) and internal sinus (3.2%) are rarer. Diagnosis depends on the clinical examination and the association of sonography and TDM. The risk of complications must systematically result in proposing a surgical treatment for these benign pathologies. The umbilicus resection is not recommended, but the surgeon has to remove the urachus and its implantation base on the bladder. Laparoscopic surgery seems to be an interesting route for this intervention.