Preputioplasty or prepuce plasty, also known as "limited dorsal slit with transverse closure", is a plastic surgical operation on the prepuce or foreskin of the penis,[1] to widen a narrow non-retractile foreskin which cannot comfortably be drawn back off the head of the penis in erection because of a stenosis which either has not relaxed during childhood and adolescence or has re-narrowed after sexual maturity.
Preputioplasty is a treatment for phimosis in the alternative to circumcision and radical dorsal slit
Preputioplasty may be performed by Y-plasty or Z-plasty, techniques also used in reconstructive surgery to loosen constricting scar tissue following traumatic burns.
However, Y-plasty and Z-plasty require a degree of surgical sophistication that physicians in general practice may lack.
More commonly it simply consists of one or more very short longitudinal incisions which release the stenosis — the constricting ring of tissue — in the foreskin and are closed transversely: [|] is closed and sutured as [—].
In the alternative to suturing, "[h]aemostasis [has been successfully] performed [in children] with a heated probe using the flame of an alcohol lamp or with bipolar electrodiathermy."[2]
Only one incision is shown in Figure 3; if two or more such incisions are made this will prevent a V-shaped indentation at the opening of the foreskin when the penis is not erect.
The opening of the foreskin is now normally wide enough for the foreskin to be easily retracted. The foreskin is also slightly shorter (by half the length of the longitudinal incisions which are now closed transversely) because the widening of the phimotic ring takes up some foreskin length.