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Imaging of the urethra: current status

Departments of ¹ Urology and ² Imaging, The Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton BN2 5BE, UK

• The male urethra is more prone to disease than the female urethra, notably trauma and stricture formation.
  
• These entities are traditionally investigated with retrograde and antegrade contrast studies, and more recently, with high frequency ultrasound.
  
• Diseases in the female, including urethral diverticula and sub-mucosal urethral cysts, are centred on the periurethral tissues rather than the lumen, and as such are better investigated by MRI.
  
• MRI is also central in the diagnosis and management of rare conditions of the urethra such as urethral fistulae and malignancy.
  
• This review considers all these imaging modalities, comparing their relative merits and summarizing optimal technique.
  
• Throughout, the imaging is related to the clinical conditions of: urethral strictures, urethral diverticula, trauma, urethral fistulae, calculous disease, malignancy and pelvic surgery.