Does Glue Reduce Penile Adhesions After Circumcision?

This is Todd Ponsky with the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, and here's your two-minute review. Today, we're going to review an article that was just published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, called, the role of two octo cyanoacrylate in the prevention of penile adhesions after circumcision, a prospective randomized trial. The first author was Dr. Hannah Al-Amehu, and the senior author was Dr. Shawn St. Peter, and this was out of Mercy Children's in Kansas City. What they set out to determine was that, is there any benefit of using surgical glue following circumcision? Specifically, their hypothesis was that the use of glue after circumcision would decrease post-operative penile adhesions. So, they did a prospective randomized trial. One group had a circumcision followed by the placement of antibiotic ointment, and the second group had a circumcision followed by the placement of surgical glue. Regarding their technique, they used a freehand circumcision using the Gomco clamp, followed by suturing of the skin edges. Then they followed up the patients in two and four weeks, and assessed if they had a difference in penile adhesions, and they also assessed parent satisfaction. So what did they find? They found no difference. They actually started off with 409 patients, but when it came to being able to collect data for follow-up, they only ended up with 243, but the two groups were pretty much equivalent. And when they looked at the two groups, they found no difference. The penile adhesion rate was the same, parent satisfaction was the same. So in conclusion, it's really dealer's choice. You can use glue, or you can use antibiotic ointment, there really is no difference, at least as regards to penile adhesions and parent satisfaction. We hope you enjoyed this review. Please leave your comments below, specifically tell us which type of dressing you use after circumcision. We'll see you next time, thanks.