Surgical Treatment of the "Re-buried" Penis

Abstract

Surgical treatment of a buried penis is becoming more common than before. However, in-appropriate operation may re-bury the penis and result in crippled penis. Treatment of the bur-ied or “re-buried” penis should be careful. We assessed urological problems and complications after surgery in adolescents with buried and re-buried penis. We reported 7 boys with a recur-rence of buried penis after surgery. All of them had undergone a primary operation for correc-tion of a buried penis followed by one or two revisions due to unsatisfactory results. All had a trapped penis, shortage of penile skin and ventral chordee, which was beneath an annular cica-trix resulting in voiding difficulty or urinary retention. Our operations involved incision of the ring of hypertrophic scar tissure, release of the ventral chordee, repositioning of the penile skin, incision of the suspensory ligament of the penis, re-anchoring of the skin at the base of the penis to the pubic periosteum and transposition of a split-thickness skin graft for ventral shaft cover-age. Satisfactory cosmetic and functional results were achieved in all the cases. Inadequate sur-gery for a buried penis could re-bury the penis and the subsequent revisions may worsen the burial. Recurrent buried penis should be corrected appropriately since further operations in-crease the risk of re-burial and, even worse, may result in a crippled penis. (J Urol R.O.C., 8:135-141,1997)