New Insight about Phimosis

Confusion in the precise definition and classification of phimosis results in either over or under estimation of the true incidence of this common condition, most of the practitioners ignoring the fact that normal prepuce is passing through a different stages of maturity from infancy to adulthood, and had a variable ranges of preputial hiatus configuration, with a different degrees of the potential balanopreputial space separation. At the meantime, many researchers are not aware about the difference between phimosis and preputial synechiae, describing the normal neonatal synechiae as a physiological phimosis with a resultant misleading in the incidence rates of both conditions, which translated into unnecessary circumcisions in many young boys. The simple fact that the foreskin non retractability should not be a synonymous with phimosis, phimosis is a pathological condition, characterized by hardening, scaring and stenosis of the tip of the foreskin, banning exposure of the glans penis, it could be a congenital anomaly or an acquired pathology; which is commonly inflammatory in nature.

Keywords

Phimosis; Preputial synechiae; Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans; Balanopreputial space; Cicatricial phimosis; Kinesiotherapy; Dorsal slit; Superincision

Author(s): MA Baky Fahmy

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