Erectile Dysfunction in Patients with Electrical Injury

Kim, Hyung Joo; Kim, Jong Myung; Kang, Il Mo; Choi, Nak Gyeu

Abstract

PURPOSE: The severity of electrical injury depends on the intensity and pathway of the electric current. We hypothesized that erectile dysfunction (ED) may be a sequelae of electrical injury. Therefore, in this study, the prevalence of ED in electrical injury patients was estimated, and the results correlated with the electric voltage and pathway of the electric current at the time of the injury.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Mail and phone surveys were undertaken by 416 electrical injury patients admitted with electrical injury to our burn care center, between November, 1998 and December, 2003. Patients were given a self-administered questionnaire, which included the five item Korean version of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5). The voltage, pathway of electric current at the time of injury and other diseases, such as hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM) and neurological disease, were also reviewed. Of the 416 (66%) subjects, 276 agreed to participate, but 20 (7%) of these were excluded due to HTN, DM and neurological disease.
RESULTS
The remaining 256 patients constituted our patient population. The mean age was 39.2 (range 21 to 66) years. 52.7% of the 256 patients had ED. According to age, the prevalence of ED in patients in their third, forth, fifth and sixth decades were 43.8, 54.2, 55.8 and 42.9%, respectively; no patient in their seventh decade showed ED. There was no statistically significant difference among the age groups. 58.4, 21.2 and 33.3% patients with high, low and unknown voltage injuries had ED, which was statistically significant. The prevalence of ED according to the pathway of the electric current were 100, 70.3, 44.4, 31.9, 15.4 and 22.2% for whole body, upper-lower body, lower-lower body, upper-upper body, electrical spark burn and for unknown pathways, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS
To our knowledge, this is the first study of ED in electrical injury patients. 52.7% of patients with electrical injury had ED. High voltage injures showed a higher prevalence of ED than low voltage injuries. Whole and upper-lower body pathways of the electric current showed a higher prevalence of ED compared to focal/local involvement (electrical spark burn), lower-lower body and upper-upper body pathways.