Circumcision with Glubran ® 2 in children: experience of Italian Center

Background: Circumcision is one of the most common surgical procedures in the world. Despite it is known its wide prevalence for religious and medical reasons in children, it remains a controversial practice in paediatric age. To date, there is no described the gold standard technique to circumcise paediatric patients. We started to use glue for circumcision about 2 years ago. We designed this prospective study with the aim to compare two surgical techniques, which were used in our hospital to perform circumcision in children. The implication for practice was the understanding if there were differences between these approaches related to patient’s and parents benefits to manage this condition and benefits for surgeon and hospital in term of saving money and time. Methods: This is a randomized, single-blind one-center study. It was conducted at the Department of Paediatric Surgery of Siena. Data were collected between March 2011 and December 2012. Study’s population involved all patients who required circumcision. Two randomizes groups: group one which involved patients who underwent circumcision using sutures and group two, which involved patients who underwent circumcision using surgical glue (Glubran ® 2). Two exclusion criteria were used: the redo-circumcision and the allergy or hyper-sensibility to cyanoacrylate (main component of glue). Results: We report 99 patients who underwent circumcision with Glubran ® 2 in comparison with a group of children circumcised with sutures (vycril rapide). We measured three outcomes (operating time, postoperative pain and assessment of cosmetic), which, even if not all statistically significant, allowed us to draw any conclusions about the use of glue in circumcision. Conclusions: Traditional circumcision is performed using a standard sleeve technique with sutures for the approximation of the skin edges. However, since some years a tissue adhesive as N-butyl-2-cyanoacrylate (NBCA) (Glubran ® 2) is used in many centers to circumcise children. Based on our results we can conclude that, glue (Glubran ® 2) application is an excellent alternative to circumcision in paediatric age for a faster surgery, less postoperative pain and good early cosmetic.