Chordee is a condition where the penis is curved downward. Most of the times it is associated with hypospadias but can occur without hypospadias. Chordee correction is very crucial step during hypospadias repair. Without chordee correction, urethroplasty should not be attempted because there will be a stress of the urethral passage and there is high risk of complications after surgery.

Chordee surgery is usually successful in correcting the curvature of the penis completely. However, there is a small chance that chordee can come back after surgery. This is called recurrent chordee.

Risk factors for recurrent chordee:

• Incomplete correction of chordee: When the chordee is severe, it must be corrected completely during chordee correction surgery. If there is any residual chordee after chordee correction surgery, it will only worsen in the future.
• Fibrosis during healing: After chordee correction, fibrosis can occur on the underside of the penis during healing process. Sometimes the fibrosis can improve with steroid massage but if it persists then recurrent chordee correction may be required. This fibrosis can be at the level of skin, tissue under skin or even urethra.
• Due to flaps: Recently we have seen some cases where tunica vaginalis flaps were used for second layer cover during hypospadias surgery at other centres. Somehow the flaps didn’t heal well and they caused chordee to come back. Similar outcomes we have seen when a very tight urethra was made from prepucial flaps or koyanagi repair in first surgery.

Symptoms of recurrent chordee:

The common symptoms which children present with are downward bending of the penis, urine which goes backward and may have occasional pain during erections.

Adults with recurrent chordee may have pain during erection, inability to perform sexual intercourse, painful sexual intercourse and infertility

Treatment for recurrent chordee:

If you think you may have recurrent chordee or your child has recurrent chordee, it is important that you see a doctor right away. You need to visit a hypospadias surgeon or a pediatric urologist who has expertise in the field of hypospadias and chordee correction.

Chordee correction can be done by various methods. First and foremost, the cause for recurrent chordee has to be identified and then appropriate method is used to correct chordee. Chordee correction method differs for children and adults.

1. If a child presents with residual chordee due to incomplete chordee correction in the past, then the following methods of chordee correction are used: Complete degloving is done and chordee is assessed, if chordee persists even after degloving then the following methods are adopted.  If the chordee is due to short urethra due to flaps or tunica vaginalis flaps, we divide them at this stage.

Pre degloving and post degloving chordee assessment

(a) Dorsal tunica Albugenia Plication (TAP): If the chordee is less than 30 degree then it can be easily corrected by placing a non-absorbable suture at the site of maximum curvature on the dorsal side(upper side) of the penis. This will correct the chordee completely.

Post Degloving showed less than 30-degree chordee. 12’o clock dorsal tunica albuginea plication done. Chordee completely corrected by this plication.

No chordee noted after 12’o clock dorsal tunica albuginea plication

(b) Urethral plate division and Proximal urethral mobilization: If the chordee is more than 30 degrees then one of the reasons for persistent chordee is short urethra, in these cases we will have to divide the urethral plate ventrally and mobilize the proximal urethra. This will effectively correct chordee if it is due to congenital short urethra.

Urethral plate division and proximal urethral mobilization

(c)If chordee persists inspite of urethral plate division then urethral mobilization, ventral corporotomies are done. This will correct the chordee if the cause for chordee is due to disproportionate corporal bodies.

Three ventral corporotomies

(d) If none of the above measures can correct chordee then we perform a ventral lengthening procedure called as the dermal graft. Deep incision is given in the tunica on the ventral side at the site of maximum curvature and dermal graft is placed at the site. This method is adopted in cases of severe chordee.

Dermal graft

The chordee is corrected completely after the above steps of chordee correction.

2. If the child presents with severe chordee inspite of complete chordee correction in the past, then it is most likely due to ventral fibrosis. In these cases, along with some or all the above methods, removal of fibrotic tissues from the underside of the penis is important to correct the chordee.

Adults with recurrent chordee after previous surgery

In most of the adults at first we assess the fibrosis and degloving is done. If the chordee is still there, then we divide the urethral plate and mobilise it. Post this, if the chordee still persists, we can correct chordee completely by a method called as “16 dot plication”. In this method, 4 sutures are placed on either side of maximum curvature on the dorsal side, which will correct the chordee uniformly in an adult penis.

In most of the cases of recurrent chordee in addition to chordee correction, urethroplasty will also be required. In redo cases, chordee correction and urethroplasty will most likely be done in two to three stages and oral mucosa graft will be used in more than 95% of such cases. Only in few exceptional we may be able to repair everything in single stage.

About Hypospadias Foundation India:

Hypospadias Foundation in Navi Mumbai, India is dedicated to offering care and cure for chordee and hypospadias in children and adults. Set up in 2008, more than 3000 children and adults have benefitted from care and achieved best in class results for chordee and hypospadias. Dr A.K.Singal and Dr Ashwitha Shenoy, hypospadias expert surgeons at Hypospadias foundation have dedicated their lives to the art and science of hypospadias repair.

If you feel your child or you are suffering from recurrent chordee even after previous chordee correction, then do get it checked by an expert pediatric urologist or a hypospadias surgeon. Chordee correction surgery has good result when done in childhood than in adulthood. Do not hesitate to write to us or contact us

Contacting the Hypospadias Foundation:

• Website: https://www.hypospadiasfoundation.com/
• Email: hypospadiasfoundationindia@gmail.com
• Phone:
  • +916262840940
  • +916262690790
  • +919324180553(whatsapp and teleconsult)

Fill up contact form: https://www.hypospadiasfoundation.com/contact/

Keywords: recurrent chordee, residual chordee, chordee repair, chordee repair surgery, chordee correction surgery, bent penis repair, best hospital for hypospadias in india, best hypospadias surgeon, hypospadias repair in india, adult chordee repair, dermal graft repair, 16 dot plication for chordee

Dr Singal with Dr Long & Dr Zaontz

Dr Singal presented the following lectures and papers in the World Congress:

• Buccal inlay graft for failed hypospadias- Dr Singal showed technique of buccal (oral) mucosa graft inlay surgery and its results in failed hypospadias cases.
• Considerations in adult hypospadias repairs- Adult hypospadias are difficult to manage especially if the surgery done in childhood has failed. Dr Singal showed innovative surgery techniques for such adult hypospadias cases for best outcomes.
• Reimagined Byar’s flaps for staged hypospadias repairs- For hypospadias with severe chordee, it is important that the penile curvature gets fully corrected in first stage and then second stage surgery is done for bringing the urethra to the tip of penis. In expert hands the results of two stage surgery for hypospadias with severe chordee is very good. Dr Singal showed finer nuances of surgery to achieve best results to the audience.
• Parental Awareness survey for families with hypospadias: Families of children or adults with hypospadias are often not fully aware of the extent of disease and what it means in the long run. Dr Singal and his team conducted a study of 150 families to understand about their concerns about hypospadias and their knowledge level about the disease/ surgery.

Overall the three-day conference resulted in great mutual exchange of ideas and also helped younger generation of surgeons learn from eminent faculty from all over the world.

Hypospadias remains the most common urological abnormality affecting more than 1 lakh kids in India alone (based on incidence of 1/150 in newborn boys). Leaving aside very minor hypospadias without chordee- almost 70-80% of these require hypospadias treatment in form of repair surgery in early childhood.

For a child with Hypospadias, the first surgery is always the best surgery but still there can be complications and failure even in expert hands though complications are much less if operated by a surgeon or a centre where there is a focused practice in treating children with hypospadias. Literature and experts suggest that if a hypospadias surgeon is doing more than 50 hypospadias repairs in a year, then his results will be better and more predictable as compared to a general pediatric surgeon or a urologist who does only 10-20 hypospadias repairs in a year. Once a hypospadias surgery fails, then the next surgeries become more difficult and result more unpredictable. The failure rate of hypospadias surgeries vary from 5% to 50% depending on the type and severity of hypospadias in general centres and less than 10% in centres where hypospadias surgeries are done by expert hypospadias surgeons on a day to day basis.

Case details

Master A.P. was born with a distal penile hypospadias and underwent first surgery in Ahmedabad at the age of 6 years. Unfortunately, the surgery failed and he started passing urine from the same place on the underside of penis- a fistula. The new urinary passage through the head of the penis got tight and closed off. The surgeon tried to open it many times by catheter insertion but it failed. Coupled with failed hypospadias, the child also had an unsatisfactory cosmetic appearance in form of bunching of skin on underside of penis. With this situation they contacted Dr A.K.Singal, Pediatric urologist and expert Hypospadias surgeon at Hypospadias foundation in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai when the boy was ten years of age. After examining and confirming that the whole urinary pipe will have to be remade from distal penile region to the tip of penis (glans), Dr Singal advised a Onlay island flap repair for which the flap would be raised from the nearby bunched up skin. This repair is technically challenging because of previous failed hypospadias surgery but this was the only chance for the boy to have a single stage repair. The surgery for failed hypospadias was finished in 2 hours and A.P. was ready for discharge the next day but since they had travelled all the way from Gujarat, they decided to stay for 7-8 days in Navi Mumbai. The catheter was removed on day7 and he passed urine well from the tip. For the first one month after surgery, there were some chances of new opening getting tight, hence we taught the boy to insert a small catheter just 1cm into the new opening with an antibiotic ointment. The penis healed well in next 3 months and he has remained free of all symptoms now for last 5 years. At 15 years of age and after his 10^th standard exams, A.P visited us and had a big smile on his face. He is looking forward to higher education and he shared with us his dreams and further education goals. We plan to see him again one last time at 18 years of age. His penis growth and his functional & cosmetic outcome has been excellent so far.

The tale of hypospadias does not stop in first few years of life for everyone. This is especially true of adults and adolescents who underwent hypospadias surgery repair using older techniques and with lesser trained Hypospadias surgeons 15-20 years back. While a majority of these have done well, there is a sizable population of adults in India who have persistent issues secondary to hypospadias such as urethral fistulas, persistent penile chordee (bending of penis), urethral stricture or bad cosmetic outcome. As Pediatric urologist and a surgeon with deep interest in hypospadias (hypospadiologist), we keep seeing such patients on a regular basis now.

There are atleast estimated 5 lakh adults/ adolescents in India with untreated, complicated or residual issues of hypospadias in India. Some of these people live an unsatisfied life thinking that no cure is possible because that is what they have been brought up to think. Individuals who have failed multiple surgeries are called Hypospadias cripples in medical community signifying the crippling effect which inadequately treated hypospadias can have in a person’s life.

Fortunately, with newer techniques, better hypospadias surgery instruments, very good sutures like PDS, availability of dedicated hypospadias surgery teams and expert hypospadias surgeons good results are possible in any patient with previous failed hypospadias surgery even in hypospadias cripples.

Here is story in point:

Six months back I saw Mr RK, a 30 year old young man, who had been a case of failed hypospadias – operated for hypospadias twice in his childhood in a hospital in Delhi. Both the surgeries had met with partial success and his parents had left him like that and lost hope at a completely functional urethra. RK had been a good student and went on to do Engineering graduation from IIT and then a MBA from Pune. He had taken up a job in multinational company and now was planning to get married. Infact, he had delayed marriage inspite of a successful career because he was never satisfied with outcome of his hypospadias surgery. That’s why he looked up on internet and came to see us at Hypospadias Foundation in Navi Mumbai.

At the first consultation itself and being in relatively the same age group, we hit it off really well and he was quite frank and objective about his condition and that kind of interaction helps a hypospadias specialist like me. When I examined him, he had a persistent mild chordee but the bigger issue was his urinary opening (meatus) was not on the tip of penis (glans penis) but way down in distal penile location. He had many skin bridges and scarred islands of skin and a large urethral fistula in proximal penile region. There was a bit of penoscrotal transposition as well. On questioning, he was passing 50% of the urine from the urethral fistula and 50% from the distal penile location without any straining and in good urinary stream. None of these problems were major by themselves and could have been cured easily but after two failed hypospadias repairs in childhood, I think parents just gave up hope.

So we discussed with RK at length about the various things which needed to be done-

• Distal urethroplasty using flap from nearby ventral penile skin,
• Closure of urethral fistula (fistula repair) in multiple layers with tunica vaginalis flap
• Correction of penoscrotal transposition
• And chordee correction by dorsal plication.

The surgery was done next week at MITR Hospital & Hypospadias Foundation. Dr Manish Dubey, Urologist and Co-founder of Hypospadias Foundation helped me with the surgery and management immediately post surgery. RK was sent home the day after surgery. A follow up visit for hypospadias dressing removal was planned on day 5 and catheter removal o day 10.

Some of things especially in adults undergoing hypospadias surgery, which we took care of to ensure smooth recovery and are different from children:

• Postoperative pain and erections
• Choosing the right urethral catheter and drainage bag

We were also worried about higher chances of wound infection and bleeding after redo-hypospadias repair. For pain and prevention of erections we gave benzodiazepine derivative tablets and phenobarbitone along with diclofenac and that helped pretty well for two weeks. For the catheter, we used a Foleys silicon catheter for 10 days and left it to drain in a urine bag which RK could carry with him and walk around within his home.

Fortunately, everything went well and now after 3 months of hypospadias surgery, the hypospadias surgery site is healing well and there is no more pain during erections. The urine stream is good and RK is passing from the tip of his penis for the first time in his life standing like a normal man. He is not shy to use the public toilets anymore- He just stands up and delivers.

We have asked him to wait for three more months before planning marriage and these three months he is actually going to spend in finding the right girl for himself. For him, we hope the chapter of HYPOSPADIAS is closed now.

The only question remains whether as a Hypospadiologist I will get invited to his marriage- if yes, how will he introduce me? As the doctor who fixed his penis? I think that is too much and I will just skip attending his marriage and I wish him the best of luck always from our side and from everyone at MITR hospital and Hypospadias Foundation in Navi Mumbai, India.

Every year more than 100,000 (1 lakh) boys are born with hypospadias in India.  It is s staggering number.

This incidence has been calculated from birth rate for male babies according to Census 2011 and considering that the worldwide accepted incidence of hypospadias is around 1/150 male births. Further we have adjusted this for infant mortality rate. Though our own research in a population study done by Hypospadias Foundation in Vashi & Nerul areas of Navi Mumbai has shown an incidence of hypospadias around 1/126 male births, the base population was only  1200 births which was not very big, hence we did not use this figure.

At Hypospadias Foundation, we are concerned about this increasing incidence of hypospadias across the globe and we are planning to devote time and resources towards research. At the same time, even if we ignore minor hypospadias and those babies without chordee, in whom we can avoid surgery, still about 70,000-80,000 babies will need hypospadias repair surgeries in India every year.

In India, hypospadias repair surgeries are performed by pediatric urologists (wherever available), pediatric surgeons, urologists as well as some plastic surgeons. Some of these surgeons have learnt the art of hypospadias surgery with a formal pediatric urology training while others have gained experience due to their personal interest and have achieved good results. Fortunately, there are short team visiting courses available at some international centres  and also with the availability of good learning resources on internet, surgeon with special interests in hypospadias can explore multiple avenues for training. Infact the current generation of hypospadias surgeons is learning quickly and also starting their careers at a better knowledge base than surgeons who were learning hypospadias two decades back. Newer instruments, newer surgery techniques and sutures have improved the hypospadias repair outcomes.

At centres like Hypospadias Foundation at MITR Hospital, Navi Mumbai, India – a team  of two surgeons with special interest in Hypospadias – Pediatric Urologist & Hypospadiologist- Dr A.K.Singal and adult urologist – Dr Manish Dubey- work together to enhance the outcomes of surgery both in in children as well as adults with hypospadias. While the aim of the team is to spread awareness and also provide for early surgery in infancy for children with hypospadias, they are also reaching out gradually to many older children and adults with failed hypospadias repairs, persisting or residual hypospadias issues. At Hypospadias Foundation, almost every week, the team gets to see an adolescent or an adult with persistent hypospadias issues such as chordee, urethral fistula, urethral stricture, or poor cosmetic outcome such as buried penis. Some of these patients have multiple problems either due to partly or improperly repaired hypospadias in childhood. These cases are looked after by the team with special attention and effort. You can see such a cases:

14 years old Multiple failed hypospadias surgeries in childhood

With growing team and experience, the number of children and adults undergoing hypospadias surgery at Hypospadias foundation have steadily increased over the last five years. This year in 2013, we will finish with around 150 hypospadias surgeries and though it is good but it not even 1% of the total burden in India. We hope to start training pediatric surgeons and urologists so that within India there is facility for budding surgeons to learn the state of art hypospadias surgery.

Healthcare and specifically surgery is all about trust and for complicated diseases like hypospadias it takes time to achieve trust. Every single child who has undergone a successful surgery at Hypospadias Foundation, the family has spread the goodwill and good word about the dedication of our team.  In the last two years, we have been lucky to be a part of treatment process and lives of lot of outstation and international patients – some have come in from Surat, Jalgaon, Nasik, Kolhapur while others have travelled even from Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur and even as far as Jammu or Calcutta. Internationally, we now offer assistance to 1-2 patients every month from countries like Sri lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, UAE and Congo. Most of the patients who travel these large distances are either failed hypospadias or complex hypospadias who haven’t been able to get satisfactory counseling or answer to their problems.

Our team at Hypospadias Foundation helps the families with email guidance, online consults, follow-ups and planning travel and surgeries according to availability of Dr Singal and Dr Dubey.

You can watch Videos of Hypospadias Surgery on our youtube channel:

Hypospadias Channel

Videos:

Distal penile hypospadias repair

Severe Hypospadias single stage repair by Dr Singal

Contact Hypospadias Foundation

Dr A.K.Singal can be contacted at

1. MITR Hospital & Hypospadias Foundation, Kharghar – 022-27742558/ 4229  & 9324180553

Mon/ Wed/ Fri 5:00-6:00pm

2. MGM Hospital Vashi – 02261526666, 6607

Mon/ Wed/ Fri 7:00-8:00pm

3. MITR Clinic, Vashi- 02265163816, 9324502572

Tue/ Saturday 7:00-8:00pm

4. Fortis Hospital, Sector-9, Vashi- 02239199222, 200

Tue/ Saturday 6:00-7:00pm

Watch our youtube channel for videos of Hypospadias surgery – Pediatric Urology & Hypospadias Channel

You can write to us at dr Singal’s email Id – arbinders@gmail.com  for a second opinion or guidance.

This is an interesting and inspiring story and I thought I will share it with everyone who has an interest in the field of hypospadias.

About 6 months back, a 14 years old boy was brought all the way from Nasik to my Pediatric Urology clinic at MITR Hospital in kharghar, Navi Mumbai. The parents did not seem to very well educated and were from a farming background. The father was in some class 4 government job. I was wondering why they would travel for 8 hours to a small place like kharghar to see me. Also the age seemed to me a little bit older than the usual age which I see in my clinic. I was intrigued.

The boy seemed little uncomfortable and had furtive glances here and there. Parents and relatives were fidgety too. The consultation began – I asked what brought them to Kharghar. They said that their kid has hypospadias and has undergone 5 surgeries till now but still passes urine from below. I asked them “how did they find me”. They said maternal uncle of the boy knows internet and found me while looking for information about hypospadias. So there it was Internet the great enabler at play.

I went through the case records dating 10 years back. The kid was born with scrotal hypospadias and underwent first major surgery at 2 years of age to straighten the penis (chordee correction) at a top medical college at Mumbai. Post that there were multiple attempts to make a new passage initially using native penile skin and then lining of urinary bladder twice and finally skin graft. Everything had failed and the last surgery was about 5 years back when it was told that there is no hope of the boy having a normal urethral opening at tip of penis. Now I knew the reason of furtive glances and fidgety mannerisms.

On examination, the boy had the urinary opening right near the anus, the penis was still slightly bent (chordee) and there was lots of scarring on underside of penis with deep pits and ragged skin edges. Further there seemed to be a couple of blind passages and left testis also looked higher in position, may be it was caught up in the scar process. Since the opening was even behind the scrotum, the child had to sit in the toilet and pass urine. Overall, the case seemed like mother of all hypospadias.

I counseled the parents and set out a planned staged correction of hypospadias. I told them it will be tough and they will need to be patient and have faith.  The plan was to bring him back to his original anatomy first and the reconstruct the entire new urinary passage. As the first stage, I planned to remove all the scarred skin and straighten the penis. In the raw area thus created I was planning to put buccal mucosa graft which is nothing but the inner layer of skin inside the mouth more specifically lips and cheeks. This buccal mucosa graft takes about 3-4 months to heal and then we planned to use this patch to create a new urinary passage. This would give a sure result and the buccal mucosa graft being moist and soft would not have any issues being in touch with urine. Also there would be no hair growth inside the passage in the future.

Well, the parents were convinced because probably I was the first hypospadias surgeon to offer them any hope. So we all set out on our task, an uphill journey.

We took up VW for first stage surgery – expecting about 4 hours of surgical time. But we ended up consuming about 7 hours by doing the following

• Cystoscopy and ascertaining usable urethral passage
• Excision of all scar tissue on underside of penis
• Straightening the penis – chordee correction
• Closing the perineal urethrostomy and establishing a penoscrotal meatus.
• Correcting the penoscrotal transposition
• Left orchioexy was needed as the left testis was caught in the fibrosis
• Buccal mucosa graft

But we were satisfied at the end of it all. We could not think of a shortcut as the child had been through a lot. The child remained in the hospital for 7 days and the graft healed very well. At removal of catheter, he was able to pass urine from the penoscrotal meatus without difficulty and was finally able to stand up and pass urine without wetting his pants. I could see the change in his behavior and he seemed more interactive now with me and the hospital staff. We had moved forward by an inch I guess!

4 months later we admitted him again for second stage urethroplasty. The previous graft had healed very well. We could easily make a new urethra just rolling the previous graft plate. This was done over a 12 French silicone catheter without any stress. To ensure full healing we also used a tunica vaginalis graft from the right testis to cover up the suture line.

As I write, the child has finished one month follow-up after urethroplasty surgery and is recovering well from the surgery. He is passing urine currently from the tip meaning the repair is holding well. The final result is yet to be seen and may be another minor procedure may be needed but the journey has been great. Our mood is upbeat and we are sure that we will reach the destination this time or another short journey may be needed 3 months from now. The fact of the matter is that we enjoyed the journey.

It is challenges like these when everyone else has given up, we still gear up and try to do our best for these kids. We may not pass in one attempt but eventually we will. Even if 20% need another surgery that is still acceptable as the final goal can still be achieved.

I get a lot of enquiries about hypospadias through our Hypospadias foundation website – Most of these are from concerned parents, sometimes  from relatives, sometimes from referring doctors but rarely from patients themselves. For writing about themselves, the patients have to be old enough to go on Internet and seek help. And with advancing awareness, these days most of the kids are referred to me in first few months of age and sometimes even in newborn age. So to get an inquiry from a patient happens only a couple of times in a month. And most of these are enquiries before an impending marriage!

I was intrigued when I got an email from a VK 34 years old man wanting to consult me for hypospadias. My assistant, Akshay, explained to him about my consultation time at MGM vashi and at Mitr hospital.

On Monday evening, VK wrote to me again saying that he went to MGM Vashi but they refused to make a file for him and sent him back with the explanation that Dr Singal treats only kids till 15 years of age. I felt really bad and I sent an email back to him and asked Akshay to schedule an out of turn consultation for the young man on Tuesday. Tuesday otherwise is usually my free day.

So Tuesday evening, in walked VK, a smart confident young man. He was working as a senior software analyst in a well known consulting company and was married for last 3 years. The consultation began on a nice note. I went through all the papers dating back to one year of age. VK was born with a scrotal hypospadias and had undergone two stage repair at Wadia Hospital when he was 5 years of age, thereafter he had required a couple of minor procedures for narrowing of passage and urethral fistula but was mostly passing urine well. His main reason for consultation at this time was infertility. Secondary issue which we discussed was splaying of urine at time of passing urine. His urine came out in a form a spray rather than a well directed stream and he would often wet his pants and thus found it difficult to use a urinal for expeditious passing of urine.

His sperm count was almost normal and he was able to have normal erections and ejaculations. The ejaculate was not forceful so an intrauterine insemination (IUI) had been tried but two sessions had failed.

His secondary problem of a sprayed kind of urine stream was due to a wide open urinary meatus (hole) with a funnel kind of appearance and lot of loose skin folds around it. Also, the urinary opening was not at the tip of the penis but was rather on the underside about 3 cm from the tip.

From a functional point of view, the location of the urinary opening was not in too bad a location to cause infertility.  Also, since IUI had failed, I was sure that the infertility problem was not due to hypospadias per se. Given the high incidence of primary infertility these days and advanced age of the mother (34 years), the infertility may have been because of some other factors.

In his own mind, VK had thought that it was his hypospadias problem which was causing infertility. I spent close to 40 minutes trying to draw diagrams and explaining to him that we should look for other causes of infertility.  Finally, he was convinced and then I referred him to an infertility specialist and an andrologist. The plan was:

• Re-evaluation of fertility status by checking all the reports of husband and wife again
• Trial of In-vitro fertilization for having a child
• And then repair of the hypospadias from urinary point of view once wife if pregnant.

Both for the patient and the surgeon, it is very important to have the goals and expectations from any treatment set at the beginning of the treatment itself. VK had come to me with a primary issue of infertility and the secondary issue was urinary splaying due to incompletely repaired hypospadias. By solving his hypospadias issue, we could not have solved his infertility problem and I did not want him to have any false hopes and thus get surgery done for the wrong reason/ indication. Overall, VK was very happy with the plan. I hope that he will have a baby soon and then we will fix his rest of the urinary issues in a single stage and well.

Over the last few years, our team – myself and Dr Manish Dubey have treated about 20 adults with various kinds of hypospadias and residual problems. Some of these have been for urethral fistulas, others for residual chordee or cosmetic issues. Most of these have come just before marriage or when they are facing issues such as VK. A couple of patients actually travelled from south India and one from Dubai to get treated.

Hypospadias is a complex and challenging clinical problem. Worldwide accepted failure rates for single stage hypospadias repair (urethroplasty) are 5-10% and these children who have encountered a failure require a second surgery. This situation is never pleasant for the surgeon or the parents or the child who is actually undergoing another surgery. The key thing to understand here is that everyone including the parents and the doctors are on the same side in this situation and everyone wants the child to get better.

Infact when the parents come and see me in the clinic and ask about my second surgery or failure rates – I often tell them “I want your kid to have only one surgery, you want your kid to have only one surgery and the whole reason why you came to meet me and came to know that there is someone called Dr Singal is that your son has hypospadias. Our goals are, thus, aligned towards pursuing a good result with only one surgery in mind but at the same time realizing that inspite of our best intentions and experience and all the money and the efforts, 5% of the kids may still require a second surgery. Another reassuring fact is that the second surgeries are often minor with faster recovery and overall at the end of it all the child would be absolutely normal in almost all the cases. The only difficulty is to assess with full surety which child will have a failed surgery. For the child whom the second surgery becomes a reality the individual failure rate is thus 100% and for the rest the result is 100%”

Fortunately, there are some fine pointers which tell us about the increased risk of second surgery. These are:

• Severe hypospadias
• Severe chordee (the penis is very bent)
• Associated issues like chromosomal problems or disorder of sex development.

The steps which one takes to avoid failure in hypospadias have to be titrated for each case thus giving each child undivided individual attention and care. Some of the mantras in avoiding pitfalls are:

• Spending enough time to understand the subtle nuances and variations in anatomy of every case.
• Proper selection of technique of surgery- single most important step in ensuring good outcome. There are over 100 techniques described for hypospadias repair. Most of the surgeons master 4-5 techniques and then for every case we have to diligently assess and assign a technique. This is best done at the time of surgery in the operation theatre. That is why a proper training, experience and dedication is very important in assuring good results. Pediatric urology training allows a surgeon to be flexible in the approach and decide at the last moment and even change the technique if something is not working out. It is akin to waiting for a ball to spin and then playing a shot called “late cut” in cricket. The whole hypospadias repair mirrors that philosophy.
• A thorough re-operative assessment of the child for nutritional and health status is very important. The hemoglobin should be atleast 10gm% and the overall child should be well nourished so that the tissues will heal faster and better after surgery.
• Fitness for anesthesia: Hypospadias surgeries require general anesthesia for the child. It is very important that blood tests and urine tests are normal for the child. Also, a very good clinical examination is done to make sure that the child does not have any other coexisting abnormality of infection such as chest infection, cough, cold, diarrhea or skin infection. Infection anywhere in the body makes the body weak as the body is consuming energy in fighting the infection and thus healing would be delayed. Also, there is a risk of a cross infection in the operated area. Since hypospadias is not an emergency, ideally we should wait till the child is fully well and in the “Pink of the health” (so to speak) before surgery.
• Planning the surgery in a dedicated, good, well equipped & sterile operation theatre to prevent infection
• Having microsurgical instruments which are dedicated only towards hypospadias repair and not used for any other surgery. Infact I personally have 3 such sets allowing me to sometimes perform 2-3 hypospadias repairs in one day
• Using a magnifying loupe during surgery to perform surgery with finesse. Magnification helps in proper and fine dissection of tissues. Also the stitches used are of very fine caliber so magnification helps in tying knots properly.
• Working with fine sutures- this goes hand in hand with using magnification since using magnification allows surgeon to use finer sutures.
• Trained staff for surgery and post-operative care.

In the end it is important to remember that for a child with hypospadias, first surgery is the best chance at a complete functional and cosmetic result. Pediatric Urologist and the medical team should make sure and do whatever in their power to give the child a 100% result in the first stage.
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