Risk factors associated with penile prosthesis infection: systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this study was to identify the factors associated with infection in patients who undergo penile prosthesis implantation.

We performed a systematic review/meta-analysis, including clinical trials, quasi-experiments, retrospective and prospective cohort studies, and case-control studies. Searching was done in CENTRAL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE databases. Participants were patients who had erectile dysfunction, regardless of the etiology, and underwent penile prosthesis implantation. Two researchers reviewed each reference by title and abstract. The statistical analysis was performed using Review Manager 5.3 (RevMan® 5.3).

A total of 513 studies were found with the search strategies. After excluding duplicates, 40 studies with a total of 175,592 patients were included in the qualitative and quantitative analysis. Among patient characteristics, we found that diabetes mellitus and immunosuppression appear to have increase odds of infection. Related to the procedure, infection-retardant-coated penile prosthesis and primary (first) surgery appear to lower odds of infection.

Diabetes mellitus and immunosuppression were associated with increased infection rates; infection-retardant coating of the prosthesis and primary surgery were associated with reduced infection rates.