Objective To assess the outcome of internal urethrotomy for the treatment of urethral stricture. Metho ds In the past 10 years, a total of 203 patients with proved urethra l strictures were treated by optical internal urethrotomy.Follow-up studies wer e carried out for 157 patients. Results Of the 203 patie nts 194(96%) have undergone successful internal urethrotomy, 9 patients(4%) with long stricture more than 3 cm failed on repeated internal urethr otomy and required open surgery. Internal urethrotomy was carried out twice for 9 patients and thrice for 5 with successful outcome. Of the 194 patients 157 wer e followed up for 6 months to 8 years, in whom 143 have had satisfactory voiding and 14 needed intermittent dilation. Conclusions Endosc opic treatment shoud be considered as the procedure of first choice for the tr eatment of urethral strictuer, however repeated urethrotomy should be avoided.

Objective To investigate the feasibility of tissue-specific gene therapy for bladder cancer using human UroplakinⅡ(UPⅡ) promoter. Methods The recombinant adenoviruses,Ad-hUPⅡ-TNF carrying tumor necrosis factor (TNF-?) under control of the hUPⅡ,were generated.ELISA showed the production and secretion of TNF by bladder cancer cells infected with Ad-hUPⅡ-TNF.The level of TNF in urine was identified with ELISA. Results ELISA showed that production and secretion of TNF by bladder cancer cells infected with Ad-hUPⅡ-TNF was distinctly higher than by non-urothelium cells infected with Ad-hUPⅡ-TNF and MTT showed that proliferation of bladder cancer cells was obviously inhibited.Conditioned medium from bladder cancer cells apparently inhibited cells of L929 proliferation,compared with conditioned medium from non-bladder cells by the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay.Intravesical inoculation of Ad-hUPⅡ-TNF also caused decreased tumor growth in orthotopic human bladder cancer model.The sustained high level of TNF in urine could be identified with ELISA. Conclusions TNF driven by hUPⅡ promoter has effective active in the inhibition of bladder cancer growth both in vivo and in vitro.These will undoubtedly yield a new approach of therapy for bladder cancer.