THE DIAGNOSIS OF IMPOTENCE

DOI Web Site

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • 勃起不全の診断
  • 第1報 REM (rapid eye movement) 睡眠時勃起現象の臨床応用について
  • Report 1. On the Clinical Application of the Erectile Phenomena During REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep

Description

Although erectile impotence has been clinically classified into the one with functional cause and the organic one, the precise and objective method for the diagnostic evaluation of impotent patients has not yet been established. Therefore, the development of diagnostic methods of impotence is vitally expected. Since the penile erection is known to be one of the concomitants of REM sleep, the authors monitored this phenomenon during sleep (REM-Penogram: REM-P in abbreviation) in impotent patients and examined the possibility of its application to the clinical diagnosis of impotence.<br>All-night polygraphic recordings were carried-out on 3 male healthy subjects, 5 male impotent patients with functional cause and 5 with organic one. The REM-P was recorded using a strain-gauge filled with active charcoal in elastic tubing devised by Matsumoto et al, and the authors equipped the penis-root of the subjects with the strain-gauge. In order to determine wakefullness, Non-REM sleep and REM sleep, EEG, eye movements, chin muscle activity, respiration and heart rates were simultaneously recorded together with penile erection.<br>The following results were obtained:<br>1) In both the normal subjects and the functional impotent group, REM sleep was observed 3-5 times per night in all the cases except one, and the rate of the occurrence of the complete erection was in about 85% of episodes of REM sleep.<br>2) In the impotent group due to organic cause, no complete erection except one (case 9) was observed. The case 9 was the only example which recovered from impotence gradually during observation process by the follow-up of the recordings of REM-P.<br>The authors, like the Karacan's group, suggest from these results that REM-P is applicable to make a differential diagnosis of impotence, that is, to determine whether erectile dysfunction is due to organic cause or not.

Journal

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top