Medical and surgical causes of male sexual dysfunction.

This report deals with medical causes (including drugs) and surgical causes (including injury) of male sexual dysfunction, especially erectile impotence, as found in the author's sample of 176 men with sexual problems. In 31 of 79 impotent men, either the major initial cause or a contributing cause was tentatively identified as medical or surgical. An initial psychogenic component was often found and multiple causes were common. Sexual disuse was a major factor for three men over 50 years of age. Following several erection failures, performance anxiety tended to perpetuate the impotence, making retrospective identification of the major initial cause more difficult.