Treatment of Posterior Hypospadias by the Autologous Graft of Cultured Urethral Epithelium

HYPOSPADIAS is a congenital defect in which the urethra terminates on the ventral surface of the penis. In about 20 percent of cases, the urethral meatus is at the base of the penis, and the anterior urethra is absent. Treatment in these cases requires extensive reconstruction of the anterior urethra, usually with autografts of flaps of contiguous skin or preputial skin transferred with a vascular pedicle. 1 Split-thickness skin grafts from other parts of the body have also been used. 1 , 2 The presence of pilosebaceous units in skin grafts can lead to problems, however, because of hair growth and sebaceous secretion. More . . .