Spontaneous recovery of severely impaired penile arterial flow before urethroplasty for pelvic fracture urethral injury

Abstract

A 21-year-old male presented to our hospital for life-threatening pelvic fracture, mandating emergent transarterial embolization of the right internal pudendal artery. At five-month post-injury, penile arterial flow was severely impaired, thus penile revascularization surgery were planned, before attempting urethroplasty for a 2-cm gap in the posterior urethra. However, reevaluation angiography results obtained two months later revealed spontaneous recovery of penile arterial flow. Excision and primary anastomosis urethroplasty was successfully performed without signs of bulbar ischemia. This case suggests that the timing of urethroplasty following pelvic injury should be tailored according to recovery of penile arterial flow.

Keywords

• Urethroplasty
• Pelvic fracture
• Penile artery