COMPARISON OF BIOTHESIOMETRY AND NEUROUROPHYSIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONSFOR THE CLINICAL-EVALUATION OF PATIENTS WITH ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION

In the literature the determination of the vibration sensitivity thres hold of the penile glans by means of biothesiometry has been introduce d as a cost-effective office test for the evaluation of penile neuropa thy in impotent men. At our facility we have gained extensive experien ce with neuro-urophysiological tests for the evaluation of penile inne rvation. These neuro-urophysiological tests have the disadvantage of c omplexity, invasiveness and time consumption. In our study both method s were compared in 31 impotent patients. The results showed that penil e glans biothesiometry yields consistent results when measurements are repeated during 1 session. However, no relationship was found between the outcome of penile glans biothesiometry and neuro-urophysiological tests of the dorsal penile nerve, which is probably due to the fact t hat vibration is not an adequate stimulus to the skin of the penile gl ans that contains free nerve endings (that is pain receptors) only, an d hardly any vibration receptors. We conclude that biothesiometric inv estigation of penile glans innervation is unsuited for the evaluation of penile innervation and cannot replace neuro-urophysiological tests.