Do not postpone addressing problems such as difficulty in passing urine that can have serious long term effects.

If you are experiencing difficulty in passing urine, you might want to take it seriously and seek help. This may be due to a urethral stricture where the urethra becomes too narrow to pass urine normally and can cause a host of problems if ignored, including inflammation and infection. While rare in women, urethral stricture in men can have an impact on overall health including fertility. In some cases urethral strictures left untreated can even cause life-threatening infections.

Urethral strictures and male potency and fertility

The prevalence of erectile dysfunction amongst men with urethral strictures is high. Erectile dysfunction or impotence is the inability to get or to maintain an erection to complete sexual intercourse.

What to look out for?

Urethral strictures do not usually go undetected owing to the level of discomfort they cause. These are the signs to look out for:

1) Difficulty and pain while passing urine

2) Inability to empty the bladder with frequent/ intermittent urination

3) Decreased flow/ spraying in urination

4) Heightened urge to urinate

5) Urinary tract infection

There are also some procedures and incidents that could cause urethral strictures:

1) If you have had a catheter or endoscopy in the urethra

2) If you have had a procedure for an enlarged prostate

3) An injury to the pelvis or the urethra

4) Prostate cancer

5) Sexually transmitted diseases

Urethral strictures treatment

Urethral strictures must be treated. There have generally been three main ways that urethral strictures have been treated.

Dilation: A wire is inserted into the urethra and dilators are passed over the wire to widen the urethra.

Endoscopic Urethrotomy: A cystoscope is inserted into the urethra and the narrow part of the urethra is vapourised using a laser.

Urethroplasty: This procedure involves the surgical removal of the narrowing part and reconstruction using tissue from the cheek or skin.

These methods have been generally used to treat urethral strictures but are known to give way to some issues or complications such as

1) High possibility of infection

2) sexual/ erectile dysfunction

3) Invasive, painful and longer recovery time

The use of Epithelial Cell Therapy for urethral strictures treatment

The UREGROW® Epithelial Cell Therapy from Mumbai-based Regrow Biosciences consists of using buccal cells extracted from the patient’s cheek which are then cultured and implanted into the urethra.

The advantages of epithelial cell therapy is that

1) it is a natural reconstruction that requires no grafting,

2) sexual function is regained, and

3) normal urinary flow is restored

Several reputed medical facilities in Mumbai have tie-ups with Regrow Biosciences to bring UREGROW® Epithelial Cell Therapy to its patients.

If you would like to receive more information about how UREGROW® can help you, feel free to Contact Us and we would be happy to help.