The use of a silicone-coated acrylic vaginal stent in McIndoe vaginoplasty and review of the literature concerning silicone-based vaginal stents: a case report

We present our experience on the use of a new designed vaginal stent that was coated with silicone in two mullerian agenesis cases who had Mc Indoe vaginoplasty. Both full thickness and splitt thickness skin graft were used with the stent. No graft loss or hyperthrophic scarring which may be seen at the apex of neovagina after Mc Indoe vaginoplasty was observed during the follow-up period and adequate neovaginal depth were obtained in both of the patients.We think that the incorporation of silicone to a vaginal stent for postoperative wound care improves skin graft take and decreases a possible constriction band formation in neovagina.The correction of vaginal agenesis requires the creation of a neovaginal cavity that is dissected between the bladder and the rectum [1]. The technique needs to use the split-thickness skin graft or full-thickness skin graft. The procedure is not entirely satisfactory in cases of reconstructed vaginal stenosis, inadequate vaginal length. In order to prevent a possible contraction of the reconstructed vagina, a long-term vaginal stent use is required to maintain vaginal width and depth. The vacuum assisted closure-system (VAC) has recently been introduced to improve the take of skin graft in vaginal reconstruction and it has been reported to exclude the need for vaginal stent [2]. Although new techniques which does not necessitate a prolonged dilatation is developed, McIndoe's method is still one of the very popular methods of vaginoplasty and it has been shown to be effective in creation of a neovagina for patients with mullerian agenesis [3]. Several vaginal stents have been described for postoperative maintanence after Mc Indoe vaginoplasty [4-9]. We present our experience with a new silicone coated acrylic stent in 2 vaginoplasty patients.Silicone is the most widely used biomaterial in plastic surgery field for different purposes due to its high biocompatibilty. We incorporated silicone to a new designed vaginal stent. The idea has