Parent Pointers: Understanding Hypospadias Surgery

Hi, welcome back to PARC Parent Pointers Video Blog. If you haven’t already go check out my previous videos that go into detail about what to expect before and after surgery in regards to feeding instructions, when to give pain medication, surgery check-in times, and when patients of all ages can resume normal activity. This video picks apart why your son might have been told his type of hypospadias needs two surgeries to be corrected, while another mother’s son might have been told it can be corrected in one surgery. 

Hypospadias is a very common penile birth defect that affects about 10,000 boys in the United States every year. This is important to keep in mind because many parents explain to me how they feel guilty that there was something they did to cause the defect – this is not true. There is nothing you did or didn’t do to cause the hypospadias.

The most common hypospadias defect is distal followed by a lesser common variant called proximal hypospadias. We do not decide how many surgeries are necessary just by the diagnosis of either distal or proximal hypospadias. Instead, we decide based on 2 factors: penile curvature and the location of the urine opening. 10% of distal hypospadias patients and nearly 1/3 of proximal hypospadias patients have ventral curvature less than 30 degrees while bending of more than 30 degrees occurs in 1/2 of proximal hypospadias repair cases. This is important to note for surgery because while the urine opening is important for diagnosis, in order to correct the hypospadias we want to make sure the penis is straight. A vast majority of patients that have less than 30 degrees of curative can be repaired in 1 surgery while patients with curvature of more than 20 degrees must be corrected with a 2 stage repair.

Everything is case by case and nothing is ‘black-and-white’. If you have any questions our providers Dr. Warren Snodgrass and Dr. Nicol Bush are more than happy to provide you with detailed care in regards to your son. Regardless if you are having surgery with our office or not, we want to make sure you are give accurate and detailed information. You can either let our office know via phone at 214-618-4405 or via email at info@parcurology.com.