[Evaluation of sexual activity after prostatic surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia assessed by pre-operative and...

Different authors showed a 5-40% incidence of erectile dysfunction after prostatic surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of prostatic surgery due to benign prostatic hyperplasia on sexual activity.

We evaluated 56 patients (mean age 63 years, range 49-70) who underwent transurethral resection of the prostate (30 patients, mean age 64 years, range 56-70) and open prostatectomy (26 patients, mean age 59 years, range 49-70) with a questionnaire regarding the presence of sexual dysfunction before and 3, 6, 12 months after surgery. All patients were not affected by previous or present metabolic, neurological, cardiovascular diseases.

Twenty percent of the patients with a normal sexual activity before treatment presented erectile dysfunction after surgery. However, 35% of patients with erectile dysfunction before treatment presented an improvement of their erectile function after surgery.

A high incidence of erectile dysfunction was observed in patients undergoing prostatic surgery. Patients with erectile dysfunction should also recover a normal behaviour after prostatic surgery as well as an improvement of the erectile dysfunction.