Relationships between erectile dysfunction, prostate cancer treatment type and inflatable penile prosthesis implantation.

The prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) and the utilization of inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) among prostate cancer patients are understudied. The aim of the study was to examine the relationships between ED, prostate cancer treatment type and IPP implantation in a national cohort.

We identified a retrospective cohort of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare patients diagnosed with locoregional prostate cancer between 2006 and 2011 and treated with surgery or radiation. Chi-square tests were used to detect significant differences in ED rates as well as use of IPP among the subset with ED. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine factors associated with the use of IPP.

Among 31,233 patients in our cohort, 10,334 (33.1%) received prostatectomy and 20,899 (66.9%) received radiation. ED within 5 years was significantly more common in the prostatectomy group relative to those the radiation group (65.3% vs. 33.8%, p<0.001). In the subset of 13,812 patients with ED, the radiation group had greater median time to ED diagnosis compared to the prostatectomy group (346 vs. 133 days, p<0.001). IPP implantation was more frequent for prostatectomy patients than for radiation patients (3.6% vs. 1.4%, p<0.001). Cancer treatment type, race, and marital status were significantly associated with IPP utilization.

ED is highly prevalent among prostate cancer patients, and IPP implantation is be underutilized. ED rates, time to ED diagnosis and utilization of IPP differed significantly by prostate cancer treatment type.

Investigative and clinical urology. 2022 May [Epub]

Chan Shen, Kunj Jain, Tejash Shah, Eric Schaefer, Shouhao Zhou, Dennis Fried, Drew A Helmer, Hossein Sadeghi-Nejad

Department of Surgery, Division of Outcomes Research and Quality, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA., Division of Urology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ, USA., Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA., War-Related Injury & Illness Study Center, VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ, USA., Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA.