PURPOSE: A nationwide
survey was conducted of Korean
urologists to illustrate
physicians '
perceptions and real practical patterns regarding
Peyronie disease (PD). MATERIALS AND
METHODS: A specially designed
questionnaire exploring practice characteristics and
attitudes regarding PD, as well as
patient satisfaction with each
treatment modality, was e-mailed to 2,421 randomly selected
urologists .
RESULTS: Responses were received from 385 practicing
urologists (15.9%) with a median
time after
certification as an
urologist of 12 years. Regarding the natural
course , 87% of
respondents believed that PD is a progressive
disease , and 82% replied that
spontaneous healing in PD occurred in fewer than 20% of
patients . Regarding
diagnosis of PD, the
methods used were, in order,
history taking with
physical examination (98%), International Index of Erectile Function
questionnaires (40%), intracavernous
injection and stimulation (35%), and duplex sonography (28%).
Vitamin E was most preferred as an initial medical management (80.2%), followed by
phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (27.4%) and
Potaba (aminobenzoate
potassium , 20.1%). For
urologists who administered
intralesional injection , the injected agent was, in order,
corticosteroid (72.2%),
verapamil (45.1%), and
interferon (3.2%). The most frequently performed
surgical procedure was plication (84.1%), followed by excision and
graft (42.9%) and
penile prosthesis implantation (14.2%). Among the most popular
treatments in each modality, the
urologists '
perceptions regarding the suitability of
treatment and
patient satisfaction were significantly different, favoring plication
surgery .
CONCLUSIONS: The practice pattern of
urologists depicted in this
survey is in line with currently available Western guidelines, which indicates the need for development of further local guidelines based on solid clinical data.