Mathieu Foreign Body Forceps — French Hypospadias Surgeon

Mathieu Foreign Body Forceps — French Hypospadias Surgeon

Albert Mathieu, French urologist whose 1932 description of the Mathieu meatal-based flap repair for distal hypospadias defined a foundational technique still in use, designed the foreign-body forceps that bears his name for the urethral and bladder foreign-body retrieval procedures common in his era. The Mathieu forceps’s specific jaw geometry engages foreign bodies in the urethral-and-bladder anatomy without further trauma to the friable urothelium.

The Mathieu hypospadias technique

Mathieu’s 1932 meatal-based flap urethroplasty remains a standard repair technique for distal hypospadias — particularly the glanular and coronal subtypes. The technique uses a flap of skin proximal to the meatus, rotated forward to form the distal urethra. The Mathieu repair is one of the most-performed hypospadias procedures globally; it shares the Mathieu name with the foreign-body forceps from the same surgeon.

The foreign-body retrieval indication

Urethral and bladder foreign bodies are uncommon but their removal requires specialised instrumentation — the Mathieu forceps engages these foreign bodies under cystoscopic or open-surgical vision. Modern flexible-cystoscopy techniques have replaced most open foreign-body retrieval, but the Mathieu pattern persists for residual indications and for resource-limited urological practice.