Female Bladder Exstrophy: Report of 2 Unique Cases and Review of the Literature

Abstract

Bladder exstrophy is a rare lower urinary tract malformation that occurs less frequently in women than in men. We report 2 cases of bladder exstrophy occurring in women. One patient was an adult with congenital bladder exstrophy; the patient's bladder wall flap was used to reconstruct the neourethra after the bladder was closed using a conventional procedure. The other patient experienced lower abdominal trauma that led to widespread loss of skin and subcutaneous tissue, exposing the bladder in the lower abdominal wall. In this patient, a pedicled gracilis muscle flap was used to close the abdominal wall after the closure of the bladder. To our knowledge, the first is the fifth reported case of bladder exstrophy in an adult woman and the latter is the first reported case of bladder exstrophy caused by trauma. Both patients showed good outcomes after undergoing surgical treatment.