Discussion
bleeding, renal or ureteric stones
BENIGN PROSTATIC HYPERPLASIA, BLEEDING, BLADDER TUMORS, RECURRENCE, URETHRAL STRICTURE, URETHRAL STRICTURES, COMPLICATION, STRICTURES, COLD
Laser invaded medicine in the last decades of the past century. Soon after that different laser technologies were widely used for urology purposes. It gained popularity among urologists in endoscopic resection of benign prostatic hyperplasia or bladder tumors, fragmenting renal or ureteric stones, and lastly in treatment of urethral strictures because of less bleeding, shorter hospitalization time and less complication rate [In the current study, we found that laser group had shorter operative time than cold knife group with significant difference between studied groups (18.11 ± 3.92 min and 26.29 ± 4.34 min), respectively, which was in agreement with many studies [In our study, we found that there was dramatic improvement in the mean values of IPSS, PVR and Qmax in both groups. There was no significant difference between both groups in the mean values of IPSS, PVR and Qmax during follow-up visits. However at the end of follow-up at 1 year, there was statistically significant difference between both groups in the mean values of IPSS, PVR and Qmax due to higher recurrence rate in cold knife group than laser group. These results were matching with results of many studies even using other types of laser [In fact, urethroplasty is the best treatment option for urethral stricture removing all the scarred and fibrotic tissues which is the corner stone in preventing recurrence. However, urologists depend on VIU for its ease, simplicity, less invasiveness, short convalescence and suitability in short segment strictures. The main obstacle in the conventional VIU is inability to remove the fibrotic tissues. Endo-urologists luckily found relief in holmium laser that vaporizes an impeachable part of the scarred tissues without affecting healthy tissues as its penetration depth is only 0.4 mm.