Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of ED in electrical injury patients and correlate the results with the electric voltage and the pathway of electric current at the time of injury.
Methods: Mails and phone surveys had been undertaken to 416 electrical injury patients who had been admitted with electrical injury to our burn care center from November 1998 to December 2003. Patients were given a self-complete questionnaire, including international index of erectile function (IIEF-5). Also, we reviewed the voltage, the pathway of electric current and other disease history such as hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), and neurologic disease. Of 416 subjects, 276 agreed to participate. Of these 276 subjects, 20 were excluded for HTN, DM, and neurologic disease.
Results: Of the 256 patients, 52.7% had ED. There was no statistically significant difference among the age groups. Of the patients, 58.4% with high-voltage injury had ED, 21.2% low voltage, and 33.3% unknown voltage, which was statistically significant. The prevalence of ED, according to the pathway of electric current, was 100% when the whole body was affected, 70.2% upper-lower body, 44.4% lower-lower body, 31.9% upper-upper body, 15.4% electrical spark burn, and 22.2 % unknown.
Conclusions: This is the first study of ED in electrical injury patients. High-voltage injures showed the higher prevalence of ED than low voltage. Whole and upper-lower body pathway of the electric current showed a higher prevalence of ED compared with focal/local involvement (electrical spark burn), lower-lower body, and upper-upper body.