[Corpus cavernosum fracture: the ultrasound in the emergency diagnosis]

The main objective of this work is to study usefulness of ultrasound (US) for the emergency diagnosis of the penile fracture.

We reviewed all the penile US studies registered in our Emergency Department between July 2007 and August 2009 with suspicion of a corpus cavernosum fracture. We compared US findings (subcutaneous haematoma, peri-albuginea haematoma, albuginea rupture and Bucḱs fascia rupture), and the clinical progress, with those of the surgery. We studied sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of US in the diagnosis of rupture of the tunica albuginea. The epidemiological data of all the cases reviewed were collected.

Twelve patients with a mean age of 37.8 years were reviewed. The most common cause of injury was sexual intercourse. A subcutaneous haematoma was found in nine patients, a peri-albuginea hematoma in eleven of the cases, and an albuginea rupture was seen in six of them. We found no Bucḱs fascia rupture. Seven patients underwent surgical treatment and in the remaining five patients, treatment was conservative. Clinical progress was good in all cases. US, as an emergency test to diagnose albuginea fracture gave 0.83 sensitivity, 1 specificity, 1 positive predictive value and 0.83 negative predictive value.

We believe that US is a useful procedure in the diagnosis of acute penile fracture and that it could be proposed as the diagnostic method of choice to confirm the clinical suspicion of penile fracture. Identifying the exact site of a tear in the tunica albuginea facilitates the surgical procedure.