[Propoleum and Peyronie's disease]

Peyronie's disease is a plastic penile induration which represents a well-known problem affecting men in their middle age, who suffer penile incurvation during erections, pain and poor consistency at the site of incurvation. There is no satisfactory treatment for this disease. A patient with Peyronie's disease who received propoleum treatment for a giardiasis infection referred spontaneous improvement of this penile incurvation as treatment cycles were repeated. So, we decided to treat a group of patients with this pathologic entity with propoleum to evaluate its efficacy.

Initially, 25 patients were studied, only 13 completed the study 6 months later.

age, penile incurvation, presence or not of pain with erections, detection and measurement (cm) of the fibrous plaque on physical examination and ultrasound, and description of its radiologic characteristics. Propoleum powder (300 mg) was administered for 6 months.

Patient age was predominantly between 51 and 60 years. Upward deviation was the most frequent presentation; it disappeared in 2 patients in the "Improved" group. Most patients had no pain. 3 patients out of 13 had no plaque on examination at the end of treatment. Regarding incurvation 10 patients improved, 2 improved slightly, and only one improved somewhat during the first three months but then after remained the same. Penile x-ray was not useful as a diagnostic test; penile ultrasound was greatly useful.

Penile incurvation improved in 77% of the patients. Fibrous plaques were reduced more than 0.5 cm on ultrasound (average 0.64 cm).