Post Date December, 03 2023
The penile artery index is usually used to indicate the penile blood pressure, and the penile artery index=penile artery blood pressure/brachial artery blood pressure. The penile artery index of a normal person is close to 1.0, and exceeding 0.8 is considered normal. It is abnormal when the penile artery blood pressure is 30mmHg (4.0kPa) lower than the average systemic arterial blood pressure, or the penile artery index is lower than 0.6. The principles for determining the results of penile blood pressure measurements are as follows:
(1) When the penile artery index of at least one artery is less than 0.6, penile erectile function is impaired (very rare, only one artery index is less than 0.6, while the other three arteries are normal), and the reading of the penile cavernous artery is the most meaningful.
(2) When one or more arteries are between 0.6 and 0.8, it indicates partial insufficiency of vascular function.
(3) All arterial indices above 0.8 indicate a healthy penile vascular function.
(4) When the difference in systolic pressure between the bilateral penile cavernous arteries reaches 30mmHg (4.0kPa), it indicates clinically significant damage to the internal pudendal artery and its branches.
However, the measurement results of penile blood pressure are often not constant, due to both technical limitations and the influence of environment and emotions on penile vascular responses. Therefore, if abnormal results are obtained, it is necessary to repeatedly measure and verify before making a conclusion about abnormal penile artery index. Arterial blood pressure measurement may be helpful in diagnosing arterial insufficiency, but it is not very reliable to exclude arterial insufficiency as the cause of impotence only by this test. And it cannot elucidate any situation of blood flow, let alone detect penile artery function in an erect state. Therefore, this method still needs further improvement and improvement in diagnosis.
