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Plication surgery does not produce additional loss of length in Peyronie’s disease patients

International Journal of Impotence Research (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nesbit’s procedure remains a cornerstone in surgical management of Peyronie’s disease, despite the subjective loss of penile length. This retrospective study demonstrates that the perceived length loss has already occurred prior to surgery and that the Nesbit’s procedure does not produce additional loss of length. Ninety-one patients who had undergone Nesbit’s procedure between 2017 and 2022 at the Department of Urology of the University of Trieste were enrolled in the study. Preoperative stretched penile length and postoperative stretched penile length were measured. The curvature was uniplanar in 78 patients and biplanar in the remainder. Mean degree of the main curvature was 52.58° ± 14.13° and mean number of plications was 2.42 ± 1.07. Analysis revealed that the median of the differences between preoperative stretched penile length and postoperative stretched penile length was not significant (p = 0.466). According to our results, no significant penile shortening occurs as immediate consequence of Nesbit’s procedure, as length is defined by the shorter side of the shaft affected by Peyronie’s disease. Hence the length loss should have to be attributed to Peyronie’s disease itself and could have been accurately predicted preoperatively allowing for a more accurate counseling of patients. Further studies are pending to assess potential postoperative loss of length due to scarring contracture.

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Data are anonymized and stored at the Department of the University of Trieste.

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Funding

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This research received no external funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, St. George’s University Hospital, London, UK

    Giulio Garaffa

  2. Department of Urology, University or Trieste, Cattinara Hospital – ASUGI, Trieste, Italy

    Fabio Traunero, Francesco Claps, Giulio Rossin, Andrea Piasentin, Michele Rizzo, Arianna Biasatti, Federico Zorzi, Carlo Trombetta, Giovanni Liguori & Luca Ongaro

  3. Department of Surgical, Oncological and Oral Sciences, University of Palermo, 90127, Palermo, Italy

    Nicola Pavan

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  1. Giulio Garaffa
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Contributions

Conceptualization: GG; Data curation: GG, FT and LO; Methodology: GG, FT and LO; Software: FT, GR, AB and FZ; Investigation: GG, FT, LO; Formal analysis: FT and LO; Writing – Original Draft: GG, LO and FT; Writing—Review & Editing: FC, NP, AP, MR, CT and GL; Supervision: CT and GL.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giulio Garaffa.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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This is a prospective non-interventional study conducted on patients treated by the law and the national and European ethical guidelines. All Authors ensured that their institutions and their clinical behavior are complying with the specific requirements of the Country.

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Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. The informed consent as well as the consent for the use of personal data were regularly collected from all the subjects involved in the study. Signed informed consent forms are stored in an appropriate repository.

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Garaffa, G., Traunero, F., Claps, F. et al. Plication surgery does not produce additional loss of length in Peyronie’s disease patients. Int J Impot Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-024-00852-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-024-00852-3

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