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Take-home messages on male genital aesthetic surgery

International Journal of Impotence Research volume 34, pages 404–405 (2022)Cite this article

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Aesthetic surgery of the male genitalia is an extremely controversial and debated surgical field, made such by a significant request from patients and limited scientific evidence to support. The massive disinformation promoted by pornography and the considerable associated economic interests contribute to making cosmetic male genital surgery a hot topic of sexual medicine [1,2,3]. Numerous procedures that aim to improve the aesthetics of the genitals in healthy men fall under this umbrella term, including simple interventions practiced in common clinical practice (e.g., frenuloplasty, preputioplasty, and scrotoplasty) [4,5,6], complex interventions requiring remarkable surgical experience and skills (e.g., penile lengthening, penile enlargement, and glans augmentation) [7,8,9], and emerging interventions based on innovative techniques materials or devices (e.g., penile transplantation, platelet rich plasma injections, and Penuma® implant) [10,11,12]. These procedures can be performed by urologists, plastic surgeons, or even general surgeons [2, 3].

In this intellectually turbulent context, a special issue of “IJIR: Your Sexual Medicine Journal” has recently been dedicated to male genital aesthetic surgery, collecting critical reviews by leading international experts on the topic [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. It highlights the current evidence, strengths, and limitations of this surgical field and constitutes a valuable tool for updating on the subject as well as a valid starting point for guiding clinical practice.

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This is an editorial comment discussing the key points of other papers, therefore, the availability of the reported data does not depend on the authors.

References

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  6. Schifano N, Castiglione F, Cakir OO, Montorsi F, Garaffa G. Reconstructive surgery of the scrotum: a systematic review. Int J Impot Res. 2021.

  7. García Gómez B, Alonso Isa M, García Rojo E, Fiorillo A, Romero-Otero J. Penile length augmentation surgical and non-surgical approaches for aesthetical purposes. Int J Impot Res. 2021.

  8. Manfredi C, Romero Otero J, Djinovic R. Penile girth enhancement procedures for aesthetic purposes. Int J Impot Res. 2021.

  9. Califano G, Arcaniolo D, Ruvolo CC, Manfredi C, Smarrazzo F, Cilio S, et al. Glans penis augmentation: when, how, and why? Int J Impot Res. 2021.

  10. Girard AO, Lake IV, Lopez CD, Kalsi R, Brandacher G, Cooney DS, et al. Vascularized composite allotransplantation of the penis: current status and future perspectives. Int J Impot Res. 2021.

  11. Israeli JM, Lokeshwar SD, Efimenko IV, Masterson TA, Ramasamy R. The potential of platelet-rich plasma injections and stem cell therapy for penile rejuvenation. Int J Impot Res. 2021.

  12. Wilson SK, Picazo ALL. Update on the Penuma® an FDA-cleared penile implant for aesthetic enhancement of the flaccid penis. Int J Impot Res. 2022.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Urology Department, HM Hospitales, Madrid, Spain

    Javier Romero-Otero

  2. ROC Clinic, Madrid, Spain

    Javier Romero-Otero

  3. Urology Unit, Department of Woman, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples, Italy

    Celeste Manfredi

Authors
  1. Javier Romero-Otero
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  2. Celeste Manfredi
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CM drafting the paper; JRO supervision and critical review.

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Correspondence to Javier Romero-Otero.

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Cite this article

Romero-Otero, J., Manfredi, C. Take-home messages on male genital aesthetic surgery. Int J Impot Res 34, 404–405 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-022-00552-w

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