Penile Rehabilitation after Cancer Treatments | Memorial Sloan Kettering

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Men who have had surgery or radiation treatment for prostate cancer can benefit greatly from penile rehabilitation — the use of PDE5 inhibitors, penile injections, and penile implants — to protect and maximize erectile function, says Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center sexual health specialist, John Mulhall, MD.

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Let’s talk about Penile Rehabilitation, also called erectile tissue preservation. Penile Rehabilitation is the use of any drug or device at or after radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy to maximize erectile function recovery.

The purpose is to prevent erectile tissue damage – damage to the muscle and the endothelium in the penis. Our purpose is to protect it from atrophy and degeneration. Our goal is to get you back to where you were before your prostate cancer treatment.

The strategies that are used, neuroregenerative drugs, PD5 inhibitors – the group of drugs that Viagra, Lavitra and Cialis belong to, and penile injections. There is very little evidence that transurethral prostaglandin or a vacuum device are a rehabilitation strategy at this point in time, although I think we’re going to have trials in the not to distant future.

We are not going to spend a lot of time talking about neuroregenerative drugs; however it is a very hot topic in the field at the moment.

Drugs developed specifically to prevent nerves from being damaged, whether it be surgery or radiation and increase the chances of other nerves regenerating.