Buccal mucosal graft ureteroplasty: The new normal in ureteric reconstructive surgery - Our initial experience with the laparoscopic and robotic approaches.

INTRODUCTION: Upper ureteric stricture is always a challenging case to treat for any urologist. Due to chronic inflammation and multiple interventions, it becomes a complex entity to treat. Buccal Mucosal Graft (BMG) Ureteroplasty is a reconstructive surgery used to treat upper ureteric stricture but the results and experience with this modality is less explored so far. We present here our study of 16 cases of BMG ureteroplasty and its outcomes done by the laparoscopic and robotic approaches.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We analysed 16 cases of BMG ureteroplasty, which were performed both laparoscopically and robotically. All these cases were long ureteric strictures, not amenable to excision or endoscopic intervention. We performed using an onlay BMG without complete mobilisation of the ureter. The omentum or nearby fat was used as a bed for onlay BMG.

RESULTS: All 16 patients underwent onlay ureteroplasty. The reconstructed ureter was wrapped with omentum in nine of the cases, while in seven patients, nearby fat was used. The median stricture length was 5.28 cm, and the median operative time was 143.5 min. The mean operative time was 143.5 min. 15 of 16 (93.75%) cases were successfully clinically and radiologically on follow-up.

CONCLUSION: Long-segment upper ureteric strictures are a difficult entity to operate on. BMG ureteroplasty is a safe and effective way of managing such strictures. Robot-assisted ureteroplasty provides the benefits of improved ergonomics, easy manoeuvrability and precision surgery to the patients. Our experience with both laparoscopic and robotic ureteroplasty would encourage urologists all over to use BMG ureteroplasty as an effective long-term procedure for ureteral reconstruction.