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Long-term consequences of bilateral cavernous crush injury in normal and diabetic rats: a functional study

International Journal of Impotence Research volume 34, pages 781–785 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

A recent statement from the European-Society-for-Sexual-Medicine has highlighted the limitations of using the rat model for nerve-sparing prostatectomy. The use of young rats with no comorbidities and the early evaluation of the erectile function (EF) are deemed a source of bias. Our aim was to evaluate the long-term consequences in EF of bilateral nerve cavernous crush- injury (BNCI) in type 1 diabetic (DM) rats 30-male/12-week-old rats were divided into four groups: Sham, BNCI, DM, and BNCI + DM. Sham group underwent an intraperitoneal injection (IP) of saline solution and after 1 month underwent a sham laparotomy. BNCI underwent an IP of saline solution and after 1 month to BNCI. DM underwent an IP of 60 mg/kg-1-streptozotocin (STZ) and after 1 month to a sham laparotomy. BNCI + DM underwent an IP of 60 mg/kg-1-STZ and after 1 month to BNCI. After 5 months from the induction of diabetes, all rats underwent measurement of intracorporeal pressure (ICP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) during CN-electrostimulation. Multiple groups were compared using Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance followed by Mann–Whitney U test for post hoc comparisons. Blood glucose-level was higher (p < 0.05) in the groups with DM and BNCI + DM. After 5-months, DM and BNCI + DM also showed a lower weight compared to other groups (p < 0.05). No differences were noted in ICP/MAP between the sham and BNCI. BNCI + DM showed lower ICP/MAP compared to all the groups (p < 0.05). DM Showed lower ICP/MAP compared to Sham and BNCI (p < 0.05). BNCI in rats without comorbidities did not induce long-term erectile dysfunction (ED) suggesting a spontaneous EF recovery. BNCI in DM induced long-term ED. The results of previous short-term studies can only provide evidence on the time to recovery of spontaneous EF as to the actual EF recovery rate.

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Fig. 1: Time-line diagram illustrates the study design.
Fig. 2: Rat weight time-line chart. BNCI: bilateral cavernous crush injury, DM: type 1 diabetic.
Fig. 3: Glucose serum level time-line chart.
Fig. 4: Erectile function measurement: Summarized data comparing erectile function measurements at various voltages during cavernous nerve electrostimulation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Arianna Bettiga, Giorgia Colciago, Rita Van Bree, Catherien Luyten, Goedlieve Verbist, and Petra Steven for their technical contributions to the experiments in this study. This study was fully funded by the European Society for Sexual Medicine (ESSM) grant for basic medical research 2014 and by the European Urological Scholarship Programme (EUSP) awarded to FC.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, University College London Hospital, London, UK

    Fabio Castiglione, Omer Onur Cakir, Hussain M Alnajjar & Asif Muneer

  2. Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, University College London, London, UK

    Fabio Castiglione & Asif Muneer

  3. Division of Oncology/Unit of Urology, Urological Research Institute, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy

    Fabio Castiglione

  4. Laboratory for Experimental Urology, Organ systems, Department of Development and Regeneration, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Maarten Albersen & Steven Joniau

  5. Section of Urology, Department of Surgical, Oncological and Oral Sciences, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Salvatore Fiorenzo & Carlo Pavone

  6. Department of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Petter Hedlund

  7. Division of Drug Research, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Petter Hedlund

  8. Division of Surgery and Interventional Science and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre University College London Hospital, London, UK

    Asif Muneer

  9. Department of Urology, Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, Santander, Spain

    Luis A. Kluth

  10. Department of Urology, University Hospital Frankfurt, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Felix Campos-Juanatey

  11. Department of Minimally Invasive and Robotic Urologic Surgery and Kidney Transplantation, University of Florence, 50100, Florence, Italy

    Andrea Cocci

  12. Department of Urology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20251, Hamburg, Germany

    Clemens M. Rosenbaum & Malte W. Vetterlein

  13. Servicio de Urología. Hospital Can Misses, Ibiza, Spain

    Enrique FES

  14. Chair of Urology and Andrology, Department of Regenerative Medicine, Cell and Tissue Bank, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Ludwik Rydygier Medical College in Bydgoszcz, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Jan Adamowicz

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  1. Fabio Castiglione
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  2. Maarten Albersen
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  3. Salvatore Fiorenzo
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  4. Petter Hedlund
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  5. Omer Onur Cakir
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  7. Hussain M Alnajjar
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  9. Asif Muneer
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Consortia

Trauma and Reconstructive Urology Working Party of the European Association of Urology (EAU) Young Academic Urologists (YAU)

  • Fabio Castiglione
  • , Luis A. Kluth
  • , Felix Campos-Juanatey
  • , Andrea Cocci
  • , Clemens M. Rosenbaum
  • , Malte W. Vetterlein
  • , Enrique FES
  •  & Jan Adamowicz

Contributions

Conceptualization: FC, MA. Experiment Execution: FC, SF, MA, PH. Formal analysis: OOC, HA, AM. Methodology: FC. Funding acquisition: SJ, FC. Writing–original draft: SF, FC, HA, AC. Writing–review & editing: AM, CP, MA, PH, YAU.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabio Castiglione.

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Competing interests

FC, MD is supported by The Margaret Spittle Research Fellowship, University College London Hospital, London UK. AM is supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre UCLH. All authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Castiglione, F., Albersen, M., Fiorenzo, S. et al. Long-term consequences of bilateral cavernous crush injury in normal and diabetic rats: a functional study. Int J Impot Res 34, 781–785 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-021-00474-z

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