Priapism from Recreational Intracavernosal Injections in a High-Risk Metropolitan Community

Recreational use of intracavernosal injections (ICIs) is a high-risk behavior that involves sharing of these agents by men without physician regulation.

To characterize the etiologies and outcomes of priapism at a Los Angeles metropolitan medical center to better understand patterns of usage of recreational ICIs and the public health implications of such practices.

With institutional review board approval, we retrospectively reviewed all cases of priapism presenting to the emergency room of a Los Angeles tertiary medical center from 2010 to 2018. We compared outcomes between patients who presented with priapism after recreational ICI and patients who presented with other etiologies.

We describe patient characteristics, etiologies, and treatments of priapism at our institution.

We identified 169 priapism encounters by 143 unique patients. Recreational ICIs accounted for 82 of the 169 priapism encounters (49%). Patients who used recreational injections were younger than those who presented with other etiologies (43.5 years vs 47.5 years; P = .048) and had delayed presentations (median, 12 hours vs 8 hours; P < .0001). There was no statistical difference across groups in the proportion of patients requiring operative intervention (14.6% of recreational ICI users vs 16.1% of all other patients; P = .23). A total of 36 out of 72 patients who used recreational ICIs (50%) were HIV+.

Our study adds to the relatively sparse literature on priapism outcomes. We identify and describe a high-risk population that uses recreational intracavernosal injections.

To our knowledge, this is the largest series of priapism encounters. However, the data are retrospective from a single institution, and there is a lack of long-term follow up.

A large proportion of priapism visits at our institution were attributed to recreational use of ICIs. This is a high-risk patient population that may not be aware of the risks of recreational ICIs and the consequences of priapism. Further effort should be made to increase public and physician awareness of this harmful practice. Zhao H, Berdahl C, Bresee C, et al. Priapism from Recreational Intracavernosal Injections in a High-Risk Metropolitan Community. J Sex Med 2019;16:1650-1654.