Late complications of circumcision in Iran

Today, circumcision is the most commonly performed surgical procedure worldwide. Early and late complications may occur due to circumcision. To find the prevalence of late complications of circumcision, we studied 3,205 elementary-school boys aged 6–12 years in 2002. All of them were Iranian and Muslim. Nearly 3,125 of the boys have been circumcised. Most of the boys (2,214 boys) had been circumcised after 2 years of age. Moreover, most of them were operated by traditional circumcisers (43.49%). Late complications (7.39%) were reported in 231 boys. Excessive residual foreskin was seen in 113 children (3.6%). Excessive removal of skin was detected in 42 boys (1.3%), meatal stenosis in 29 boys (0.9%), granoloma in 22 boys (0.7%), penile rotation in 17 boys (0.5%), and 8 boys had secondary chordee (0.2%). The complication rate was not different between the neonatal circumcision and older groups. We suggested that circumcision should only be performed in medical institutions by suitably trained specialists.