Plenary session on Cell therapy approaches for Urethral Stricture in the NCRM NICHE 2025 (PASRM)-2025

Urethral stricture disease remains a major challenge in urology, often leading to recurrent urinary obstruction and significant impairment in quality of life.For decades, endoscopic interventions such as dilation and direct visual internal urethrotomy (DVIU) have been widely used as minimally invasive options; however, their high recurrence rates highlight the fundamental limitation of these approaches, which fail to restore the damaged urethral epithelium.Open urethroplasty remains the gold standard for definitive management, yet it is technically demanding and not universally accessible.This unmet need has driven the search for less invasive yet durable regenerative approaches.The BEES-HAUS (Buccal epithelium Expanded and Encapsulated in Scaffold-Hybrid Approach to Urethral Stricture) technique [1] represents a novel tissue-engineering strategy designed to repair and replace the urethral epithelium through autologous buccal epithelial cell implantation.Buccal cells harvested under local anesthesia are cultured ex vivo and mixed with an endotoxin-free polymer scaffold (Festigel) as a carrier, which is then transplanted endoscopically to the site of stricture, after urethrotomy.This approach has proven preclinically [2,3] and clinically, the successful engraftment of the cells onto the open wound of urethrotomy [1], without the need for open surgery, offering a potential paradigm shift in minimally invasive stricture management.After successful preclinical development and initial clinical application in India, BEES-HAUS has demonstrated promising outcomes in maintaining urethral patency and epithelial continuity with minimal complications.Building on these achievements, clinical application has now begun in Japan under the regenerative medicine regulatory framework [4], with ongoing efforts to establish standardized protocols and long-term safety data.This presentation will outline the background of urethral stricture therapy, limitations of existing transurethral treatments, and the rationale and clinical progress of the BEES-HAUS method as a next-generation regenerative therapy bridging endoscopic and reconstructive urology.Plenary session on Cell therapy approaches for Urethral Stricture in the NCRM NICHE 2025