Penile Revascularization Effective With Robotic Surgery

four of them went home two days after the operation

New surgical methods have greatly increased the chance of men who have suffered from pelvic crush injuries being able to regain full erectile function.  Pelvic crush injuries which damage the penile artery often lead to severe erectile dysfunction which is not able to be treated in the normal way using Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. For this type of injury it was previously required that large midline surgical interventions would be required in order to allow the epigastric vessels to be harvested which in turn would lead to penile revascularization.

The new research project undertaken by the Department of Urology at the Tulane Health Sciences Center based in New Orleans, Louisiana selected five volunteers to undergo special epigastric vessel harvesting using robotic surgical tools. All of the volunteers had normal erectile function before their injuries and were subjected to penile revascularization with a modified Virag-V method which involved only a 3cm incision in the base of the penis, and the microscopic revascularization was undertaken by the process of anastamosing the epigastric artery with the deep dorsal vein. Out of the five men who underwent the surgery four of them went home two days after the operation and soon were able to resume sexual activity. One of the patients suffered from thrombosis of his deep dorsal penile vein and was treated with a penile prosthesis implant.

Overall the researchers were pleased with the study especially in that this new procedure does not require large incisions which means that the recovery time will be faster. They said that this new technique would need further evaluation over the long term with more volunteers coming forward.

The most important requirement for good erectile function is having a healthy penile artery to supply blood to the penis. Almost 90 percent of all erectile dysfunction cases are directly linked to a blood flow problem in this artery and that is why the drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra which help this artery to expand and thus let more blood through are so successful in the majority of cases.