How long has your inflatable implant lasted so far?

[newbie443]

The study is to show the impact of case volume on implant surgery. As part of that it covers how long devices last in relationship to case volume (low or high volume doctor).

Thanks for sharing this! Based on the paper, a surgeon’s case volume doesn’t seem to correlate with mechanical failures but only shows a correlation with infectious complications. Thoughts?

Page 227:
"We did not observe a relationship between surgeon experience and rates of reoperation for noninfectious complications after IPP surgery. Dubocq et al performed a single center retrospective review of 366 IPP cases, another study that examined the impact of surgeon experience on IPP mechanical failure rates, and similarly found no difference between high and low volume implanters. The absence of an association between surgeon experience and noninfectious IPP failure is not surprising.Surgeon experience has no impact on the physical mechanical properties of prostheses and, therefore, would not be expected to have an impact on the likelihood of mechanical failure. In addition, we speculate that although lower volume implanters might be more prone to errors in pump placement or device sizing, lower volume implanters might also be less likely to perform a repeat operation in a patient with suboptimal but noncatastrophic IPP outcomes such as glans hypermobility or pump migration."

I understand this to address the previous page and figure 2. Figure 2 shows a decline for each of the 4 groups in reoperation for infection. However, for non-infection reoperation it shows a decrease for the first 3 groups and then an upturn for the highest volume group. That is to say the data alone does not show the same relationship as for infection as it does non-infection reoperations. I agree that the reason is that the lower volume doctors would not do reoperations for non-infection reasons. That men would have to find a high-volume doctor to repair a problem caused by low volume doctors. I am an example of this. All my local doctors are very low volume and none of them do reoperations. I was even told by the business office that results were so poor with my local doctors that a number of men have the device removed. I confirmed this with my last visit to my doctor. None of my local doctors do reoperations for repairs. They do remove devices for infection or other problems. I was able to go several hundred miles away to have my repair with a higher volume doctor. So the raw data from this study shows high volume doctors fixing low volume doctors mistakes.

[LetoMan]

How long does an implant last?
It’s impossible to predict how long an implant will function in a particular person. Implants subject to wear and mechanical failure over time. A recent study of more than 37,000 patients showed that the 7-year mechanical survival of the Boston Scientific AMS 700™ Penile Implant is greater than 94%.4 To prolong the life of your implant, follow the advice of your urologist. - Boston Scientific website

This largely conforms with my understanding. I’m sure the study is published somewhere and you can find all that info. But I suspect the definition of “mechanical survival” is designed to exclude guys that had the implant removed for reasons other than mechanical failure. They probably also exclude things like dead guys or other outliers. But a 6% mechanical failure rate in the first seven years sounds about right. And that’s consistent with the idea that more than 50% of implants are still functioning after 15-20 years or whatever.

I’m an info junkie and always love having access to data when I want it. Sure, more data would be helpful. I’m sure it exists, it just needs to be tracked down. My only point was that there isn’t really a reason to doubt the manufacturers’ claims here.

[Kodixx]

LetoMan - I agree.

Yes - their lawyers make sure there's real data, and a calculation that can be explained, to back up their published claims in case of a lawsuit. Some people would claim that they just make numbers up - not likely.

I’m an info junkie and always love having access to data when I want it. Sure, more data would be helpful. I’m sure it exists, it just needs to be tracked down. My only point was that there isn’t really a reason to doubt the manufacturers’ claims here.