Effect of phenylephrine and terbutaline on ischemic priapism: a retrospective review
- This is a retrospective study from American Journal of Emergency Medicine
- There are not a lot of higher level of evidence of articles with large sample size on priapism. Many studies are not recent and based on less than 20 participants
- Current guideline recommends penile aspiration and use of intracavernous injection of vasoactive agents. This study (published in 2015) is focused on the effectiveness of phenylephrine and terbutaline on detumescence of ischemic priapism (primary outcome). Secondary outcome is drug-related adverse drug events.
- Method: there are 31 participants with ischemic priapism, with 8 received terbutaline and 23 received phenylephrine.
- Result: Of the cases treated with terbutaline, 25% had successful detumescence compared with phenylephrine with a 74% success rate. No drug-related adverse events were reported or identified. Patients receiving phenylephrine were more likely to achieve successful detumescene.
- Limitations: patients are not randomized to treatment, which may lead to selection bias. Generalizability of the results is also limit with a small number of patients.
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