Q: My 80 years old father had a surgery to remove a bladder stone 2 years ago. Then he had a procedure done to remove overgrowth scar tissue in his urethra for the second time in the last 2 years. Is there any medication or dietary supplement to prevent the growth of scar again?

A:It is unfortunate that your father has developed stricture urethra following the previous surgery, a well-known complication. Treatment of stricture urethra depends on the length of stricture, its location and degree of periurethral fibrosis. Let me make it clear that there is no medical treatment for this disease. Treatment offered may be endoscopic (minimally invasive) or by open surgery. Endoscopic treatment has lower success rates, and can be a reasonable first line treatment if the stricture is short, limited to bulbar part of urethra and is not very tight. The types of open surgeries for treating stricture disease vary. While short length structures may be excised or increased in diameter with a patch, longer strictures may have to be treated in stages. Strictures may recur irrespective of the type of treatment offered. A study of extent of his urethral problem by doing an ascending urethrogram or retrograde urethrogram could, thus, be the right beginning to end his problem permanently.