Objective: To evaluate erectile disfunction (ED) after radical prostatectomy in a non selected group of patients and their response to sildenafil.
Methods: We included our patients who were operated on between 1998 and 2001. The patients filled in a modification of IIEF (mIIEF) before the RP operation. We tried sildenafil with doses of 100 mg in 3 different periods: 3-6, 12 and 18-24 months after the RP operation. In the event of a complete response they filled in the mIIEF again.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 62.8 years old and the mean observation period was 31.7 months. Only 111 (62%) of the total number of patients operated on wanted treatment and only 90 took sildenafil in the proposed protocol; 27 (30%), 18 (20%) and 45 (50%) patients had a complete response, a partial response or no response to the sildenafil respectively. The mIIEF showed 6.5+/-5.7 points less than the mIIEF pre-treatment. In the univariate analysis, the preservation of bundles, the presence of a previous partial response and the presence of the previous tumescence were significantly related to the complete response; however, only tumescence kept its value in the multivariate study.
Conclusions: Urologists must involve themselves in the early rehabilitation of the erectile function even in those patients where preservation of the NVB was not possible. One must always try to preserve, uni or bilaterally, whenever the patient desires preservation of EF. The response to sildenafil is better after the first year and in patients who have previous tumescence.