Pediatric UrologyDiagnosis and Treatment of Urethral Prolapse in Children: Experience With 34 Cases
Section snippets
Material and Methods
The charts of 34 patients with the diagnosis of urethral prolapse from 1983 to 2006 were reviewed. When reviewing the hospital database for urethral prolapse (“International Classification of Diseases” code 599.5), 60 patients were listed from 1983 to 2006. However, only 34 charts were applicable to children. The cases were examined secondary to chart availability. The variables considered were age at diagnosis, presenting symptoms, urinalysis findings, race, weight with percentile, treatment
Results
All 34 patients were black girls with an average age of 5.4 years (range 5 months to 12 years). All 34 pediatric patients presented with a chief complaint of vaginal bleeding or blood on their undergarments. Of the 34 patients, 10 also had urinary symptoms of dysuria, frequency, or urgency. On physical examination, all patients had a protruding, congested, and edematous bleeding, fleshy mass surrounding the external urethral meatus. The urinalysis report was available for 32 of the 34 children.
Comment
Urethral prolapse is a rare benign condition that involves the distal urethra.6 Although this condition is rare, it should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of any girl with vaginal bleeding.7 It occurs most commonly in prepubertal black girls and postmenopausal white women.6, 7 The exact etiology of urethral prolapse remains unknown. Two main theories have been proposed, congenital vs acquired.5 The most popular theory was proposed by Lowe et al.,6 who described urethral
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