Written by Peter N. Schlegel MD, FACS. The article by Mulloy et al in J Urology raises additional considerations for the management of men with priapism. The authors evaluated over 10,000 men using an administrative database, comparing the risk of developing subsequent cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and thromboembolic disease men with a history of priapism. The men with priapism had a 24% higher risk (OR, 1.24) of subsequent disease relative to men with a history of erectile dysfunction, Peyronie's disease or premature ejaculation. This means that even men who are already at risk for cardiovascular disease (men with ED) have a lower risk of subsequent vascular disease than men with priapism. The authors appropriately removed men with a diagnosis of sickle cell disease from the priapism patients, emphasizing the relevance of these observations for men with idiopathic priapism. The study has the usual limitations: The data are based on coding with ICD-10 and CPT codes, and the database is almost exclusively based on patients who have commercial insurance. Read More
November 11, 2022
