Tokyo, 29 November, 2018: Male urethral stricture is a common condition for which open surgical treatment of transplanting buccal tissue to the stricture area called Buccal Mucoal Graft-Plasty (BMG Plasty) is the most accepted treatment modality in recent times. However, the risks associated with the procedure and the issue of stenosis occurring again in more than 40% of the patients makes the urologists look for better alternatives. A pilot study of simple endoscopic transplantation of autologous buccal mucosal epithelial cells expanded and encapsulated in scaffold and transplanted in a pilot study has proven worthy for a larger clinical study, which is under proposal to be conducted in Japan.

Discussions between Dr. Surya Vaddi when he was a consultant Urologist, Narayana Medical college & hospital, India & and the biomaterial team of GN Corporation (GNC), Japan through the good office of Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM) gave rise to a thought process which resulted in conceiving the Buccal epithelium Expanded and Encapsulated in Scaffold‐Hybrid Approach to Urethral Stricture (BEES‐HAUS) procedure. The BEES HAUS procedure using buccal mucosa cells encapsulated in a thermoreversible gelation polymer scaffold was successfully employed in in six male patients with bulbar urethral stricture of greater than 2 cm in length which is technically difficult to treat with conventional endoscopic urethrotomy procedures. Of the six patients, four of them achieved relatively long-term stricture-free status with the BEES-HAUS approach.  The results of this pilot study have been published in the International Journal of Urology (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/iju.13852) which is the official journal of Japanese Urological Association.

GNC, Japan has now signed a MoU with JBM, Inc., headquartered in Japan for transferring their IP rights to take these results to a multi-centric clinical trial in Japan shortly which will lead to a wider approval and recognition of this procedure. NCRM, India will provide basic cell culture related training to the Japanese scientists for this planned multi-centric clinical trial.

Queries to: ncrm@nichimail.jp