Analysis of the effects of different surgical approaches on corporotomy localization in inflatable penile implant surgery performed by expert implant surgeons

Abstract

Inflatable penile prostheses may be a solution for patients with erectile dysfunction. To our knowledge, no data exist regarding the effect of different surgical approaches used during implantation on the site of the corporotomy. The main purpose of this multicentre study was to investigate the influence of different surgical approaches on the corporotomy site. Data were collected from six expert implant surgeons. Surgical notes were searched for the incision site, proximal, distal and total corporal length measurement, total cylinder length, length of rear tip extenders, surgery time, type of implant, and reservoir placement. The association between the proximal/distal corporal length and the recorded covariates was examined using a linear mixed model. A total of 1757 patients who underwent virgin prosthesis implantation were included in the analysis. Analysis of proximal/distal measurements was performed on 1709 patients. The proximal/distal ratio had a mean of 0.8 +/- 0.3 in penoscrotal incisions (n = 391), 0.7 +/- 0.2 in infrapubic incisions (n = 832) and 0.7 +/- 0.2 in subcoronal (n = 486) incisions. We observed no significant differences in proximal/distal measurements between the highest-volume surgeons. We could not draw a firm conclusion about the difference in corporotomy site between different surgical approaches, but we found no significant difference between the highest-volume surgeons using different techniques.