Redo pelvic fracture urethral injury repair: The case for tadalafil

Objective: To define the role of tadalafil in improving outcomes of redo urethroplasty for pelvic fracture urethral injury (PFUI). PFUI is common in developing countries, invariably as a result of road traffic trauma. Repair is complex, and redo cases are even more challenging.

Material and methods: This was a longitudinal prospective nonrandomized study between 2017 and 2019. Men undergoing redo-urethroplasty were nonrandomized into two groups. Group 1 received tadalafil 5 mg the next day after surgery and continued for 3 months, and group 2 did not receive tadalafil. Inclusion criteria were patients undergoing redo-urethroplasty willing to trial low-dose tadalafil post-operatively. Exclusion criteria were <18 years, females, primary cases, and complex cases such as recto-urethral fistula. Average follow-up was 19.5 months.

Results: Sixty patients were enrolled (29 in group 1 and 31 in group 2). Mean age was 31 years. These patients had 1-3 prior failed urethroplasties. Most required step 3 anastomotic urethroplasty (68.3%). Success was defined as absence of symptoms and no need for surgical intervention. Failure was defined as redo urethroplasty or >1 endoscopic intervention. Primary success was 83.3%. Success with tadalafil was 96.6%, compared to 71.0% in the non-Tadalafil group (P ¼ .0008). Only one patient on tadalafil failed, compared with nine in the non-tadalafil group. Secondary success rate was defined as the need for a single subsequent endoscopic intervention and was 93.3%.

Conclusion: In our series, there was improved outcome with using tadalafil in patients having redo urethroplasty for PFUI. Further trials should be done to evaluate the use in all PFUI cases.

Cite this article as: Joshi PM, Desai D, Fuziwara S, Raveenthiran S, Nafea M, Kulkarni SB. Redo pelvic fracture urethral injury repair: The case for tadalafil. Turk J Urol. 2021;47(4):319-324.