Blood platelet activity in men with vasculogenic erectile dysfunction

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the platelet activity in patients with vasculogenic erectile dysfunction (ED). Materials and methods: The total blood count, including hemoglobin (Hgb), white blood cell (WBC), red blood cell (RBC), platelet (PLT) and mean platelet volume (MPV) parameters were measured in the patient (n = 70) and control groups (n = 50). Results: The average age was 48.1 ± 11.7 and 47.6 ± 12.3 in the patient and control groups (p = 0.8217), respectively. MPV was higher in the patient group and there was a statistically significant difference between two groups (11.27 ± 0.56 and 9.8 ± 0.91, p < 0.0001). PLT counts were lower in the patient group but there was not a statistically significant difference (196.23 ± 37.01 and 209.07 ± 36.71, p = 0.0626). In terms of haemoglobin, WBC and RBC values, there was no difference in the patient and control groups. Conclusions: Finding high MPV, which reflects the platelet activity, in the patient group shows that platelets also have a role in the VED etiopathogenesis. In the case of the confirmation of this result with additional studies, the efficiency of anti-platelet therapy in the vasculogenic ED should also be researched.KEY WORDS: Erectile dysfunction; Platelet; Mean platelet volume. most potent vasoconstrictor agent. Therefore increased platelet activity play an important role in the atherosclerosis formation through mechanisms such as thrombocyte gathering, tromboxan synthesis, and expression of adhesion molecules (10-13). Increased platelet activity probably plays a role in the etiopathogenesis of vasculogenic ED with such atherothrombotic process. The relationship between vasculogenic ED and platelet activity has been investigated in some studies (4-9). But these studies contain some conflicting results. For example, while Çiftçi et al. (8) stated that both platelet count (PLT) and mean platelet volume (MPV) increased in vasculogenic ED, Aldemir et al. (9) reported that platelet count was normal. In this study, it was aimed to investigate some hematological parameters such as hemoglobin (Hgb), white blood cell (WBC), red blood cell (RBC), PLT and MPV in patients with vasculogenic ED. MATERIALS AND METHODSThe study protocol was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the School of Medicine, Istanbul Medipol University, Turkey. All of the individuals gave their informed consent. 70 patients in total who came to the Urology polyclinic between May 2015 and June 2016 with the ED complaint and were diagnosed with vasculogenic ED (arterial insufficiency) were included in this study. All the patients in this group were subjected to the detailed history (anamnesis), physical examination, erectile function examination, laboratory evaluations and penile colour Doppler ultrasonography (pDUS). The ED level was questioned by International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) which had 6 questions consisting of the 1-5 and 15 th questions of the IIEF questionnaire (14, 15). According to this, those whose IIEF-ED score was < 26 were regarde...

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