Abstract

To dynamically observe the hemodynamic features in different subtypes of vasculogenic ED after intracavernous injection of prostaglandin E₁ (PGE1). 358 of ED patients were involved in this study, including 119 psychogenic ED, 75 arteriogenic ED, 78 venogenic ED, 54 mingle vasculogenic ED and 32 other causes ED. For all of these ED patients, intracavernous injection of 10 μg PGE1 was used to induce penile erection. Then we employed color duplex ultrasonography to monitor the penile hemodynamic changes (including peak systolic velocity (PSV), end-diastolic velocity (EDV) and resistive index (RI)) at 5, 10, and 20 min after treatment. Psychogenic ED patients displayed normal hemodynamic response to PGE1 treatment (PSV> 25 cm/s and EDV <5 cm/s) and served as control. Statistic analysis demonstrated that the PSV levels in venogenic ED at all time points are dramatically lower than them in psychogenic ED and the PSV levels at 10 and 20 min in venogenic ED are significantly lower than 5 min after treatment. The EDV levels at 10 and 20 min after treatment in mingle vasculogenic ED is significantly lower than them in venogenic ED. The RI values are consistently lower than 0.9 in both venogenic ED and mingle vasculogenic ED at all time points. This study helps us better understand the hemodynamic features in different subtypes of vasculogenic ED during penile erection.

Key words: Vasculogenic erectile dysfunction, penile hemodynamic observation, color duplex ultrasonography.