title: Erectile vascular dysfunction and analysis of the risk factors related to it: clinical experience.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Preliminarily we analyzed the rate incidence of organic and psychological causes of erectile dysfunction in large cohort of patients observed during last year. Particularly we wanted to analyze the factors of risk correlated to the vascular erectile dysfunction.
  
  
  METHODS
  The epidemiological study has been conducted on a cohort of 101 patients (age 25-75 years) suffering from erectile dysfunction since 1-10 years (average: 2.6 years) and administrated during the last year by the Institute of Andrology at the University of Catania.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The organic erectile dysfunction had a frequency more elevated in comparison to the psychological erectile dysfunction, respectively engraving in 54.5% and in 45.5%. Between the organic causes of erectile dysfunction, the vascular arterial forms of erectile dysfunction represented highest rates (32.7% of the patients). The group of patients affected by vascular arterial erectile dysfunction showed several factors of risk, present in all the patients in single or combined way (comorbidity). The rate of such factors was >30% for 4 examined factors: hypertension (57.5%), smoke (45.4%), diabetes mellitus (39.3%), hyperlipidaemia (33.3%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The erectile dysfunction is frequently associated to organic causes, prevalently of arterial vascular nature. The correction of the factors of risk could lead to a better control of the erectile dysfunction and reduce the extension of the vascular arterial damage to other districts.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Endocrinology, Andrology and Internal Medicine, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Garibaldi Hospital, University of Catania, Catania, Italy. sandrolavignera@email.it
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: La Vignera
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Calogero
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Cannizzaro
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vicari
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology; D007172:Erectile Dysfunction / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D006949:Hyperlipidemias / Q000453:epidemiology; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010413:Penis / Q000098:blood supply*; D016491:Peripheral Vascular Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology