Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

The surgical management of penile oleogranuloma: case series

Abstract

Oleogranuloma of the penis is a complex set of pathological processes caused by the injection of a foreign substance (gel, balls, rods, etc.) into the penis with the purpose of penile augmentation. In this case series, we investigated a variety of clinical presentations of oleogranuloma and described our experience in managing the complications. We analyzed data on 18 patients with penile self-injections admitted to the hospitals of Astana City, Kazakhstan, during an 11-year period. The mean age of patients at admittance was 37.4 ± 6.4 years. The most common substance of injection was Vaseline (n = 16, 88.9%). The mean interval between the time of injection and the first presentation to the hospital was 10.8 ± 6.5 years. Complications included necrosis (n = 13, 72.2%), pain or swelling (n = 6, 33.3%) and cosmetic dissatisfaction (n = 5, 27.8%). All patients received surgical treatment (n = 18, 100%): simple excision with primary closure was performed for one-half of the patients (n = 9, 50%), while another half of patients underwent the two-stage scrotum skin flap surgery (n = 9, 50%). The findings of this study should raise the awareness about the diverse clinical presentations of penile self-injections among physicians for early diagnosis and timely management.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Distribution of reported cases of oleogranuloma across the world.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

  1. Santucci RA, Zehring RD, McClure D. Petroleum jelly lipogranuloma of the penis treated with excision and native skin coverage. Urology. 2000;56:331.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Al-Ansari AA, Shamsodini A, Talib RA, Gul T, Shokeir AA. Subcutaneous cod liver oil injection for penile augmentation: review of literature and report of eight cases. Urology. 2010;75:1181–4.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Balighi K, Farsinejad K, Naraghi ZS, Tamizifar B. Paraffinoma and ulcer of the external genitalia after self-injection of nandrolone. Int J Dermatol. 2008;47:1092–4.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Gersuny R. Harte und weiche Paraffinprothesen. Zentralbl Chir. 1903;30:1.

  5. Arthaud JB. Silicone-induced penile sclerosing lipogranuloma. J Urol. 1973;110:210.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Cohen JL, Keoleian CM, Krull EA. Penile paraffinoma: self-injection with mineral oil. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2002;47:S251–3.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Downey AP, Osman NI, Mangera A, Inman RD, Reid SV, Chapple CR. Penile paraffinoma. Eur Urol Focus. 2019;5:894–8.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Soebhali B, Felicio J, Oliveira P, Martins FE. Sclerosing lipogranuloma of the penis: a narrative review of complications and treatment. Transl Androl Urol. 2021;10:2705–14.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Pónyai K, Marschalkó M, Hársing J, Ostorházy E, Kelemen Z, Nyirády P, et al. Paraffinoma. J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2010;8:686–8.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Kim JS, Shin YS, Park JK. Penile skin preservation technique for reconstruction surgery of penile paraffinoma. Investig Clin Urol. 2019;60:133–7.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Ahmed U, Freeman A, Kirkham A, Ralph DJ, Minhas S, Muneer A. Self injection of foreign materials into the penis. Ann Roy Coll Surg Engl. 2017;99:e78–82.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Shin YS, Zhao C, Park JK. New reconstructive surgery for penile paraffinoma to prevent necrosis of ventral penile skin. Urology. 2013;81:437–41.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Ismy J, Amirsyah M, Palgunadi IN, Firdaus GI, Fakhrulrizal F, Khalilullah SA. One-stage reconstruction of penile paraffinoma using spiral stitches FTSG and evaluation of sexual function. Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open. 2022;10:e4048.

  14. Svensøy JN, Travers V, Osther PJS. Complications of penile self-injections: investigation of 680 patients with complications following penile self-injections with mineral oil. World J Urol. 2018;36:135–43.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Rosecker Á, Bordás N, Pajor L, Bajory Z. Hungarian “Jailhouse Rock”: incidence and morbidity of Vaseline self‐injection of the penis. J Sex Med. 2013;10:509–15.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Eandi JA, Yao AP, Javidan J. Penile paraffinoma: the delayed presentation. Int Urol Nephrol. 2007;39:553–5.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Nazarov TK, Stetsik OV, Kravtsov DV, Rinchinov VS, Vinnichuk SA. One-time use of a free perforated cutaneous autograft during the surgical treatment of the oleogranuloma of the penis (clinical case). Androl Genit Surg. 2018;19:90–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Jeong JH, Shin HJ, Woo SH, Seul JH. A new repair technique for penile paraffinoma: bilateral scrotal flaps. Ann Plast Surg. 1996;37:386.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Kalsi JS, Arya M, Peters J, Minhas S, Ralph DJ. Grease-gun injury to the penis. J R Soc Med. 2002;95:254.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Behar TA, Anderson EE, Barwick WJ, Mohler JL. Sclerosing lipogranulomatosis: a case report of scrotal injection of automobile transmission fluid and literature review of subcutaneous injection of oils. Plast Reconst Surg. 1993;91:352.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Harris KM, Ganott MA, Shestak KC, Losken HW, Tobon H. Silicone implant rupture: detection with US. Radiology. 1993;187:761–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the city hospitals of Astana.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

Conceptualization: AG, UZ. Methodology: DT, SU, GM. Data collection: MS, A Mustafa, EA. Manuscript writing: SU, MS, A Mustafa. Manuscript review and editing: A Mustafin, DT, KG. Supervision: AG, UZ, EA.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Makhmud Suleiman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Astana Medical University (IRB #18). All data were analyzed anonymously with only patient numbers as identification.

Consent for publication

The informed consent was waived in view of the retrospective and anonymous nature of the study. The consent was taken from the patients to publish anonymously photos.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Suleiman, M., Mustafa, A., Ainayev, Y. et al. The surgical management of penile oleogranuloma: case series. Int J Impot Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-023-00779-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-023-00779-1

Search

Quick links