[Sexual function after vascular surgical interventions in the aortoiliac area--causes and the avoidance of impotence]

Neurogenic and vasculogenic impotence after aortoiliac reconstruction is an unpleasant problem in vascular surgery. The importance of maintaining or restoring intraoperatively a sufficient hypogastric artery blood flow is emphasized. Postoperative neurogenic sexual disabilities are irreversible and are due to interruption of sympathetic nerve fibers supplying the genital system. Dissecting the terminal aorta and the iliac arteries the hypogastric sympathetic plexus--which descends across the bifurcation--can be easily damaged. This is the cause of the high incidence of failure of ejaculation after aortoiliac surgery. In order to avoid this neurogenic sexual dysfunction a retromesenteric approach to the aortoiliac region is anatomically suggested by A. v. Hochstetter. It enables the exposure of the abdominal aorta and the iliac arteries without disrupting the superior hypogastric plexus and its variants. Respecting the integrity of the sympathetic plexus and a sufficient flow in the internal iliac artery the frequency of postoperative disturbances of erection was reduced from 17% (1199 patients) to 12.3% (570 patients). The incidence of postoperative loss of ejaculation in the same groups of patients decreased from 81% to 20%.