Salmonella infection of a penile prosthesis

Patients with erectile dysfunction (ED) who have failed oral or intracavernosal erectogenic therapy may benefit from inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) placement. Such individuals commonly include patients with diabetes mellitus or chronic renal insufficiency. Complications of IPP placement include erosion and infection. Most often, infection of IPPs involves skin flora that are hypothesized to be introduced at the time of device placement and persist as a biofilm, causing clinical infection as a result of failure of containment by host defense mechanisms.

In this report, we describe a renal transplant patient with a Salmonella infection of an IPP following a diarrheal illness. To our knowledge, this organism has not been implicated in penile prosthesis infection.

The clinical course of, and microbiological data pertinent to, this patient are summarized. Additionally, a limited literature review was undertaken and is here summarized.

Retrospective review of medical record documentation.

This patient was found to have a Salmonella infection of his IPP with ensuing device erosion. Following urgent device removal and culture-specific antibiotic therapy, he was discharged from the hospital at his baseline functional status and renal function.

This is the first report of which we are aware in which Salmonella penile prosthesis infection is described. While this man's immunocompromised status may have made him more vulnerable to device infection, the literature is generally supportive of IPP placement in the transplant population when other modes of ED treatment have failed. Moreover, we postulate a hematogenous mechanism for device seeding in this patient.