Abstract

OBJECTIVES--To examine the incidence of urethral stricture in men in Scotland during the years 1982-1991 in relation to the changing incidence of gonococcal and non-gonococcal urethritis (NGU) over the past 20 years. DESIGN--Retrospective study of incidence of urethral stricture in Scotland. METHOD--The number of new men in whom a diagnosis of urethral stricture was made for the years 1982-1991 was obtained using the new Scottish Record Linkage system, and the number of cases of gonorrhoea and NGU was obtained from Communicable Diseases (Scotland) Unit. Age-specific rates of urethral stricture were calculated and the Poisson regression model was used to test if there was a trend of rate with age or time change. RESULTS--There was a highly significant increase in the incidence of urethral stricture with age but only a slight increase in incidence over the study period within each age group. CONCLUSION--As the interaction between age and time was not significant, it is concluded that urethritis associated with sexually transmitted organisms is an uncommon cause of urethral stricture in Scotland.