[Erectile dysfunction in those under 40. Etiological and contributing factors]

Although not very frequent, erectile dysfunction (ED) in patients younger than 40 years represents a disease to be kept in mind in our sanitary area. We propose a study of the various risk factors identified in this population group.

We studied a total of 736 patients with diagnosis of ED following our protocol, using as inclusion criteria being between 19 and 40 years of age. In this group, we have studied the incidence of various risk factors associated with the disease both globally and dividing the group into age subgroups also.

Overall, we have diagnosed 64 patients with ED under the age of 40 years (8.7%). 25 of these patients were classified as psychogenic origin dysfunctions (39%), 26 organic (40.7%), and 13 of mixed origin (20.3%). Age subgroups analysis shows: between 19 and 25 years: 7 psychogenic, 2 mixed, and 5 organic; between 26 and 30: 1 psychogenic, 2 mixed, and 3 organic; between 31 and 35: 7 psychogenic, 3 mixed, and 8 organic; between 36 and 40: 11 psychogenic, 6 mixed, and 9 organic. We identified as risk factors, in order of prevalence: psychogenic (47%), diabetes (14.6%), cardiovascular (9.7%), toxic-alcohol, tobacco, and drugs--(12.1%), neurogenic (4.8%), and others (7.3%).

ED under the age of 40 years causes a growing demand of medical care day by day, mainly due to the increasing prevalence of its etiologic factors. As other publications have shown psychogenic factors are the most frequently associated with the disease in younger patients globally, although when dividing by age groups we found different results than other publications in terms of association with various risk factors.