Department of Pediatrics, MGM University of Health Sciences, Navi Mumbai, India.
Department of Pediatric Urology, MITR Healthcare, Navi Mumbai, India; Department of Pediatric Nephrology, MGM's New Bombay Hospital, Navi Mumbai, India; Department of Pediatric Surgery, MGM University of Health Sciences, Kamothe & MGM's New Bombay Hospital, Navi Mumbai, India.
Phimosis is a common pediatric urological disorder and often necessitates circumcision. We prospectively evaluated Local Steroid Therapy (LST) as the first choice for such children.
260 symptomatic boys up to 15 years of age (Mean- 34 months) with phimosis were started on Betamethasone dipropionate (0.05%) application on gently stretched prepuce twice a day. Follow-up visits were arranged at end of week 1, 2 and 4 and 6 months. Grade of phimosis was objectively graded.
91% of the boys showed a successful outcome at end of 4 weeks; 72% responded in first week, further 16% responded in week 2 and only 2.6% achieved alleviation of phimosis on further application of LST beyond 2 weeks. 42 (17.8%) boys had a recurrence of phimosis on a long term follow-up (mean- 25.4 months, Range 6-48months), thus the long term success rate was 77% while 60 (23%) boys underwent surgery.
Local Steroid Therapy is safe and successful in alleviating symptomatic tight foreskin in a large majority of children. The response can be seen as early as one week, most of the children respond by week 2 and continuing therapy further may not be very effective.
Written by:
Reddy S, Jain V, Dubey M, Deshpande P, Singal AK. Are you the author?
Reference: Acta Paediatr. 2011 Nov 21. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2011.02534.x
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 22103624
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