NOCTURNAL PENILE TUMESCENCE AND RIGIDITY IN MEN WITHOUT COMPLAINTS OFERECTILE DYSFUNCTION USING A NEW QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS SOFTWARE

Nocturnal penile tumescence and rigidity data were collected during 3 successive nights of home monitoring from 44 men screened for normal s exual functioning. The subjects were well distributed during the inter val with an age of 31 to 81 years. Penile brachial indexes, biothesiom etry measures and testosterone levels were evaluated. Two new time-int ensity measures of tumescence (tumescence activity units) and rigidity (rigidity activity units) were used to summarize erectile activity. A high correlation (r >0.84, p <0.001) was found between these summary parameters. It was observed that at least 2 nights of monitoring were required to characterize a subject adequately because some men had sin gle nights with no measurable erectile activity. There were low correl ations among penile brachial index, biothesiometry and testosterone ou tcomes, and nocturnal penile tumescence and rigidity measurements. The re was a decrease in measurements of tip rigidity with increasing subj ect age (r = -0.238, p <0.05) and an increase in tip rigidity associat ed with penile girth during erectile events (r = 0.505, p <0.001). Cum ulative distributions of rigidity and tumescence activity units were d eveloped to permit a simple, direct comparison of other nocturnal peni le tumescence and rigidity findings to results in the study population .