After robotic prostate surgery that is performed for cancer, the patient will have a foley catheter (a small drain that is placed in the penis to allow the newly sewn connection between the bladder and the tube a male urinates through (the urethra) to heal. The urethra is disrupted by removing the prostate, and the two ends must be sewn back... Read more
One of the first tests to confirm or rule out a vascular (blood vessel) cause of erectile dysfunction involves intracorporeal injections. This is a test performed in the office that requires an injection of the medicine used to treat ED (PGE 1 or a medicine similar) into the penis. PGE 1 has been described in earlier entries, similar to... Read more
Many men are bothered with urinary problems along with their erectile dysfunction. It has been shown that severe problems with BPH or benign prostatic hypertrophy (the non-cancerous growth of a prostate) can compromise erections. The prostate lives between the bladder (the storage organ for urine) and the urethra (the tube in the penis through... Read more
An interest of mine as a robotic surgeon treating prostate cancer is performing nerve sparing prostatectomy (removal of the prostate while preserving the nerves responsible for erectile function). This is perhaps the most difficult portion of the procedure. As described before, this is due to the fact that these nerves are not visible with the... Read more
To continue the discussion of causes of erectile dysfunction, we were focusing on situations that would result in the testicle producing less testosterone, the male hormone. This is also known as primary hypogonadism (the prefix, hypo-, means low, and the word gonad is another term for sex organ). Testosterone is responsible for giving men their... Read more
