Cavernous oxygen tension in the patients with erectile dysfunction.

We designed a study consisting of 27 consecutive patients with erectile dysfunction in order to evaluate the role of cavernous oxygen tension. Patients were completely evaluated by history, physical examination, multiple blood analyses, serum testosterone level measurements, papaverine test, color duplex sonography and dynamic infusion cavernosometry-cavernosography. Blood gas samples were obtained from femoral artery and corpus cavernosum before drug injection and also from corpus cavernosum at 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 min following drug injection. Aetiologic classification of erectile dysfunction in our patients was as follows: psychogenic in 8, cavernosal failure in 14 and arterial disease in 5 cases. At flaccidity, no significant differences were found in the mean pO2, sO2, pCO2 and pH values of patient groups. After injection of intracavernous papaverine, results of the cavernous pO2 (P < 0.05), sO2 (P < 0.05) levels were found to be statistically significantly different between patients with vascular and psychogenic erectile dysfunction. Analysis of maximal cavernosal oxygen tension and PSV revealed statistically significant correlation (r = 0.66, P < 0.001). The results of this study suggest that changes in arterial and cavernosal pO2 and sO2 values may be contributing factors or co-factors in erectile failure.