NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young boys with phimosis -- constriction of the foreskin opening that prevents it being retracted over the head of the penis -- can be treated successfully without surgery.
After three or four weeks of treatment with a potent steroid ointment, betamethasone, the foreskin can be easily retracted in the vast majority of cases, urologists at the Cleveland (Ohio) Clinic report.
Drs. Lane S. and Jeffrey S. Palmer compared two topical betamethasone regimens in 200 boys, about 4 years of age, with foreskins that were unretractable.
One group had the preparation applied twice a day for 30 days, the other had three applications daily for 21 days.
The degree of phimosis after a month was graded as severe, moderate or mild. The success rate, defined as moderate-to-no phimosis, was about 85 percent in both groups, the physicians report in the medical journal Urology.
"Untoward effects are rare with either regimen," they note.
Both treatments "in conjunction with manual retraction are equally efficacious and can be offered to parents requesting nonsurgical management of phimosis," they conclude.
SOURCE: Urology, July 2008.
