Urologist Experience With Peyronie's Disease Surgery
It's a well accepted axiom that experience matters. And perhaps in no place does experience matter more than in surgery, an act in which a patient's life, function, and comfort is dramatically determined. Well, it turns out that when it comes to Peyronie's Disease, an abnormal and sometimes painful curvature of the penis, not every surgeon is equally experienced.
A study published this month in the Journal of Urology looked at surgical records generated over a 9-year period to identify how penile curvature was being treated. Researchers led by urology trainee Daniel Oberlin, MD found over 8,000 treatments for Peyronie's Disease done by 6,500 urological specialists. Notably, a tiny fraction, under 20%, did any work at all for this condition. Men's health specialists, who made up 5.3% of the urologists, did a disproporionate 15% of the surgery for Peyronie's Disease. Nearly three fourths of the surgeries were correction of curvature with any excision of plaque. During the 9-year period, there was a clear increase in the use of plication surgery relative to plaque.
Like all reconstructive surgery, surgical correction of penile curvature is an art that is informed at once by empirical research and by experience. Given that so few urologists do any work at all for Peyronie's Disease, it may be difficult for men with this condition to find an appropriately qualified specialist. At Surgeo, our objective is to simplify access to quality care. The first step is thus to find qualified surgeons for all procedures, including Peyronie's Disease. Because there are so few urologists who do this surgery with any frequency, the number of Peyronie's Disease surgeons found on Surgeo is relatively small. As of this writing, Surgeo offers only three Peyronie's Disease surgery packages: New York, New York; Nashville, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois. Each is led by a very highly qualified and focused urological reconstructive surgeon. Each represents a deep commitment to doing this surgery well.
In many cases, Peyronie's Disease surgery stands apart from other procedures. However, in some cases, penile implant surgery also requires a correction of curvature. When the curvature is slight, then a simple penile remodeling is sufficient. However, when curvature is severe, then correction requires a more elaborate hybrid surgery that both implants the prosthesis and deals more expansively with the curvature, be it with plaque excision with plication or plaque excision with grafting. Surgeo's surgery packages include ancillary procedures. In the case of penile implant surgery, they include such ancillary procedures as circumcision and penile remodeling.
Click below to see the available packages for:
