Expert discusses inflatable vs malleable penile prostheses

In this video, Charles Kaplan, MD, discusses inflatable vs malleable penile prostheses. Kaplan is a urologist with Georgia Urology.

Transcription:

Can you share your insights on the factors that most influence your selection of the most suitable implant for a particular patient's needs and lifestyle?

There are basically inflatable and then there are non inflatable penile implants. A lot of it has to do with what the patient desires and what their capabilities are. So obviously, if they have some issues with dexterity, if I feel they're not going to be able to pump the device up adequately, or they don't have a partner that can do it, they're probably not a good candidate for an inflatable device, and then I would recommend to them a malleable one. It's easy to use; you just bend it, and pretty much any patient can do that. So it has to do with dexterity. Also, sometimes with age, if it's an older patient, I feel like it's just easier for them to use a malleable over an inflatable device.

Thinking about urology in general, could you identify some areas in which educational gaps exist on the provider level?

Urology is an ever-changing field, and it's advancing pretty quickly, especially in the prostate cancer realm. I feel 1 thing that would be helpful for myself and most urologists is if we had bullet points on the advancements in some of these disease states. So we can get it, and just read over a summary and we know what the latest is rather than having to dig through articles and figuring it out for ourselves, because especially in prostate cancer, there are so many new drugs coming out right now. It used to be fairly simple, but now it's gotten to be very complicated. We all have patients with prostate cancer, and we like to keep them in house rather than the referring them out.

This transcription was edited for clarity.