HISTORY OF DIRECT VISION INTERNAL URETHROTOMY

Throughout medical history, the treatment of urethral strictures range d from catheterization, the insertion of bougies, and the application of caustics to different methods of dilation, blind internal urethroto my, and open surgery. The rise of endoscopy in the 19th century added the possibility of direct vision internal urethrotomy to this therapeu tic spectrum. The development of this endourologic method is recapitul ated from the first report in 1865 to the gold standard of cold knife urethrotomy in 1971 and later modifications (eg, advanced laser techni ques). UROLOGY 52: 729-734, 1998. (C) 1998, Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.