ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Genitourinary Surgery and Interventions
Clinical Outcomes and Quality of Life Assessment of Fully Laparoscopic Appendiceal Flap and Tongue Mucosa Ureteroplasty for Complex Ureteral Strictures
Provisionally accepted
- Shiyan Renmin Hospital, Shiyan, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Purpose: The main goal of this study is to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of two fully laparoscopic methods. These two methods are appendiceal flap ureteroplasty (AFU) and lingual mucosal graft ureteroplasty (LMGU). They are used to treat complex ureteral strictures (US). This study also analyzes how these methods affect the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients. Methods: We did a single-center, retrospective cohort study. This study included 22 patients who had complex US. All these patients received fully laparoscopic AFU or LMGU in our hospital. The time of the surgery was from January 2022 to October 2024. We assessed surgical results. We based the assessment on radiographic imaging, renal function tests and patient-reported outcomes. Patient-reported outcomes were longitudinally evaluated using the internationally validated 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) at one day before surgery, 6 months, and 12 months postoperatively. Results: All 22 patients successfully underwent the fully laparoscopic procedures without conversion to open surgery. The cohort comprised 14 patients who received AFU and 8 who received LMGU. The average length of US in the patients was 4.14 ± 0.68 cm. The average time spent on surgery was 198.86 ± 44.88 minutes. The median estimated blood loss during surgery was 67.5 ml. The median number of days patients stayed in the hospital after surgery was 8 days. The median follow-up period for the patients was 12 months. Every surgery was successful in terms of technique, so the success rate reached 100%. Patient-reported outcome scores showed obvious improvement. This improvement happened from the baseline to 6 months after surgery, and it also happened at the 12-month postoperative evaluation. Most domains of the scores had this improvement, and the difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Both fully laparoscopic AFU and LMGU are safe and effective for the reconstructive treatment of complex US. We also found that HRQoL improved significantly after the operation.
Keywords: Appendiceal flap, lingual mucosal graft, Quality of Life, ureteral stricture, ureteroplasty
Received: 20 Jan 2026; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Luo, Fang, Shi, Xu, Li and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yu Li Luo
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.