Assessment of the intracavernosal injection platelet‐rich plasma in addition to daily oral tadalafil intake in diabetic patients with erectile dysfunction non‐responding to on‐demand oral PDE5 inhibitors

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of ICI of platelet‐rich plasma (PRP) in addition to daily oral tadalafil intake in diabetic erectile dysfunction (ED) patients non‐responding to PDE5 inhibitors. Overall, 48 patients complaining of ED non‐responding to on‐demand PDE5 inhibitors were allocated into 2 equal groups, diabetics and non‐diabetics that were given a daily dose of 5 mg tadalafil plus vardenafil 20 mg on demand during the study besides being subjected to 3 doses of ICI of PRP, 4 weeks apart. Responses to on‐demand PDE5 inhibitors, International index of erectile function‐5 (IIEF‐5) score, erection hardness scores (EHS) and pharmaco‐dynamic duplex studies were assessed. After PRP injections, 33% and 50% of cases were satisfied with on‐demand PDE5 inhibitors, respectively, whereas 41% and 66% of them showed improved EHS response. Compared with baseline scores, the mean IIEF‐5 scores were significantly improved after PRP therapy in the diabetic ED group (12.1 vs. 8.04, p = 0.003) as well as in the non‐diabetic ED group (14.8 vs. 10.2, p = 0.001) linked to pharmaco‐penile duplex readings. Both good and fair diabetic control exhibited significant responses to ICI therapy of PRP compared with bad controlled cases. The significant improvement included; the IIEF‐5 score increase (86.7%, 126% vs. 16.1%), improved EHS as well as penile duplex readings. Baseline HbA1C demonstrated a significant negative correlation with IIEF‐5 score before (p = 0.019) and after PRP therapy (p = 0.002) respectively. It could be concluded that ICI of PRP could be an effective therapy for treating ED patients non‐responding to on‐demand oral PDE5 treatment.

Erectile dysfunction: Is platelet-rich plasma the new frontier for treatment in patients with erectile dysfunction? A review of the existing evidence

“…Other studies have been done evaluating the combination therapy of Li-SWT and PRP (as well as other combination treatments), however some of these studies lack control groups and thus cannot be used to evaluate the effects of PRP alone in ED ( 43 , 44 , 49 , 50 ). It should be noted that Li-SWT has not been proven unequivocally to be of benefit in ED, with data from prospective randomized trials showing conflicting results ( 7 ).…”