The European Association of Urology 2024–2025 guidelines recommend conservative management as first-line therapy for pediatric phimosis before considering surgical intervention.....
Balloon catheter dilation treatment (BCDT) has emerged as a promising foreskin-preserving approach, yet high-quality comparative evidence against conventional circumcision (CC) remains limited.
In this retrospective cohort, BCDT achieved short-term (6-month) cure rates non-inferior to CC while offering clinically meaningful advantages in procedural simplicity (6-fold reduction in operative time), pain mitigation (34% absolute reduction in incidence), accelerated healing (2.4-fold faster), and enhanced parent satisfaction. As a foreskin-preserving, minimally invasive option requiring only topical anaesthesia, BCDT may be considered for carefully selected symptomatic children with pathological phimosis, within a stepwise conservative management strategy that includes watchful waiting and topical corticosteroids as first-line therapy.