Sexual Dysfunction Before and after Treatment of Infrarenal Aortic Aneurysm Patients

Sexual dysfunction is supposed to be one major complication after treatment of infrarenal aortic aneurysms. It is still controversial how many patients suffer from a sexual dysfunction already before their operation and if there are any procedure-specific differences in postoperative sexual function depending on the operative procedure performed, for example, open (OAR) or endovascular aortic repair (EVAR).

To answer these questions we conducted this prospective unicentric study using the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) and analyzed the sexual function of 56 male patients with an infrarenal aortic aneurysm before as well as 3, 6, and 12 months after their operation. 23 patients (median age 66.5 years) were treated by OAR and 33 patients (median age 75.8 years) by EVAR.

We observed that the majority of the 56 patients analyzed (91.3% of the 23 OAR patients and 96.8% of the 33 EVAR patients) suffered from a sexual dysfunction already before their operation. A 56.5% of the OAR patients and 67.7% of the EVAR patients even disclaimed a severe sexual dysfunction prior to surgery. Age and operation method showed no significant influence on the IIEF score (P= 0.647 and P= 0.621, respectively). The change of the IIEF score over the 4 time points also did not significantly differ for age and operation method (P= 0.713 and P= 0.624, respectively). The IIEF scores were significantly different between time points T1 and T4 (P= 0.042), whereas between the other time points no significant differences were found.

Sexual dysfunction is very common in infrarenal aortic aneurysm patients even before their operation. OAR and EVAR do not cause a procedure-specific deterioration of the sexual function.