Global survey on penile implant surgeons’ preferences and intra-operative decision making

Extract

Variations in patient and surgeon preferences exist in penile implant surgery but have not been previously documented. Our primary aim was to assess worldwide differences in availability, peri-operative variations and decision making in different clinical scenarios. An electronic questionnaire on penile implant practices was distributed to penile implanters globally via social media, European Association of Urology Section of Genito-Reconstructive Surgeons (ESGURS), European Society for Sexual Medicine (ESSM), Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA), personal contacts, and through snowball sampling. The survey was open June-October 2024 and NHS Research Ethics Committee approval was not required for a survey of this nature.

Only completed questionnaires were included in the analysis. Descriptive statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics were used to summarize quantitative outcomes. Categorical data are presented as frequencies and percentages. The chi-square test was used to compare frequencies in categorical and ordinal data, with a P-value of <0.05 denoting significance. Participants were sub-categorized into low (<19/year), high (20-49/year) and ultra-high (>50/year) volume penile implanters and subgroup analysis was performed using Fisher’s exact test. Sub-categories were created based on a 2006 UK study that found a high revision rate (24%) in surgeon’s performing <20 implants/year, this was used as a cut-off number in our study to describe low volume implanters.¹ The survey consisted of 38 questions divided into seven sections: (i) demographics, (ii) operative factors, (iii) patient factors, (iv) implants following previous surgery, (v) implants following priapism, (vi) social considerations, and (vii) additional important factors (See Supplementary Material Appendix A).