Penectomy in diabetic patients undergoing maintenance dialysis

Abstract

Penectomy was performed to sustain life in 2 patients with insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, respectively, who were undergoing maintenance hemodialysis. Both patients previously had manifested a series of serious macro- and microvascular diabetic complications. The histopathologic findings in both cases included gangrenous necrosis of penile tissue, while case 2 also evinced calcification of penile arteries. Penectomy has been reported as the result of penile malignancy, anticoagulant toxicity, self-inflicted injury, and criminal assault. Other reports document penectomies attributed to perineal infection (Fournier's syndrome) in diabetic patients with uremia. In five previously reported cases of penectomy in diabetic patients undergoing dialysis, systemwide arteriopathy was present in all. There is an association between uremia in diabetics and predisposition to an ischemic-infectious lesion of the penis that fails to respond to antimicrobial therapy.