Role of shear wave elastography measured in the flaccid state in predicting arteriogenic erectile dysfunction

Abstract

The gold‐standard method for diagnosing arteriogenic erectile dysfunction (AED) is the penile Doppler ultrasonography. We proposed a novel method for predicting AED using ultrasonic shear wave elastography (SWE) considering that the former was invasive and variable. A total of 98 male patients were enrolled in our study, referred for ED between December 2018 and October 2020. For comparison, we also included 42 volunteers from the Healthy Physical Examination Center of our hospital. The Penile Doppler Ultrasonography (PDU) and SWE were performed for all patients with the intracavernosal injection (ICI). We named three groups as AED group, nonvascular ED group and healthy controls group. No statistically significant differences were found among the three groups in terms of demographic and clinical characteristics. There were no significant differences in IIEF‐5 between AED and nonvascular ED. A significant (r = 0.642, p < 0.0001) positive correlation between flaccid and erectile SWE was observed. With a cut‐off value of 13.45 KPa, the area under curve, specificity, and sensitivity of the SWE values under the flaccid state in distinguishing AED from healthy subjects were 0.867, 0.786 and 0.896 respectively. The SWE value in the flaccid state can distinguish the AED from healthy subjects.

[Retracted] Correlation Analysis of Ultrasound Elastography Score with Invasive Breast Cancer and Biological Prognostic Factors

“…The tissue with medium elastic coefficient is displayed in green. The color of UE imaging indicated the hardness of tissue [ 26 ]. Quantification by scoring can accurately reflect the stiffness of tumor tissues.…”

A Novel Method to Quantify Penile Arterial Blood Supply Using Shear Wave Elastography During Penile Duplex Ultrasound in Men with Erectile Dysfunction

“…Translational PDU only focused on the artery supply of penis, neglecting the evaluation of the penile structures. Novel SWE could assess the penile artery supply and structures as a whole [ 41 ]. So, the SWE technique would display more superiority in the territory of ED.…”

“…In the published study by our group also found that the SWE could be used for diagnosis of arterial ED, and the results showed that the penile SWE values would decreased significantly when the penis were induced to erection [ 27 ]. More importantly, the SWE value in flaccid state were related inversely with it in erectile state [ 41 ]. In 2021, Lee et al conducted a study with larger sample size to assess the role of SWE in the penile erectile rigidity evaluation in ED patients with different vascular subtype.…”

Elastography in the Urological Practice: Urinary and Male Genital Tract, Prostate Excluded—Review

“…Positive correlations between the flaccid and erect SWEv were shown. A cut-off value of 13.45 kPa with a specificity and sensitivity of 78.6 and 89.6% was used to differentiate arteriogenic ED patients vs. healthy volunteers in the flaccid state [ 79 ]. The authors concluded that SWE could be used to diagnose arterial ED.…”