In the last hours, a case of a 69-year-old guy admitted for COVID-19 that manifested this curious reaction has been disseminated. We analyze what is behind this case, and reject false info about it, with the aid of a specialist.
More than a year after COVID-19 was explained, this illness, triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, has actually created numerous countless published studies on its symptoms, complications and negative effects. Today we know that COVID-19 is a lot more than a respiratory disease: it is rather a multisystemic disease, which can impact a number of organs in addition to the lungs (brain, liver, kidneys, intestinal tracts, heart and capillary … ).
As soon as the context is located, we can prepare ourselves to better comprehend a ‘news’ that distributes in the last hours in some digital media: “The irreversible erection, ‘brand-new’ adverse effects of COVID-19″. What holds true in this headline? Can COVID-19 trigger this really particular symptom and, apparently, so little associated to the illness? Is this striking ‘adverse effects’ new? Next, we will evaluate what is behind this news already deny all the incorrect details that has been distributed in this regard (we imagine, due to the morbidity of the organ in concern).
All of it comes from a research study published by The American Journal of Emergency Medicine that describes the case of a 69-year-old male from Ohio who was hospitalized for COVID-19, and who developed an extended erection throughout his admission. Nevertheless, this study is not new, but was published in June 2020 (for some reason, the case has been saved and released by the press in recent hours).
As detailed in the research study, the male was confessed to the emergency clinic after a week of coughing, congestion, dyspnea, anorexia and generalized weakness, then revealing signs of bilateral pneumonia in his lungs. When there, he tested favorable for SARS-CoV-2. It sought numerous hours of being hospitalized that the erection occurred, however this was not the factor that led him to be confessed: “In the supination of the following afternoon, the nursing staff saw an erection. Ice bag were put, but the erection persisted for the next 3 hours with rigidity of the corpora cavernosa and a drooping glans, “the document describes.
What we frequently know as ‘extended erection’ is referred to in medical terms as priapism (from the Greek divine being Priapus, a lower god of fertility). This pathology consists of an erection that is not related to sexual stimulation which, in basic, only involves the corpora cavernosa. According to Manuel Carbonero, associate chief urologist in the Urology department of the Valdemoro Hospital in Madrid, priapism responds to a veno-occlusive mechanism that is modified. “During erection, sensual stimulation triggers the endothelium, the inner layer of blood vessels in the penis, allow the blood to go into and form a type of ‘swamp’, a flood, which causes the erection “. When it comes to an erection that does not vanish, where sexuality is not included, there is an alteration in this regular system of the body, which can be produced by various causes (a spine injury, for instance, however likewise by effect compounds such as medications and other drugs).
” It could be that COVID-19, which is a multisystemic disease, can cause the alteration of the erection mechanism, just as it has produced cerebral or lung embolisms, modifying the mechanism of inflammation of the vessels, that is, causing an inflammation in endothelial cells “, Carbonero endeavors.
Therefore, do we currently affirm that COVID-19 caused this private to have a prolonged erection? If we continue checking out the report on the client’s progress, we can just conclude that it is not clear. The factor? A drug called propofol and with which this person was intervened in order to treat COVID-19.
There are two kinds of priapism or extended erection: low-flow or ischemic, or high-flow or venous. “Ischemic priapism, in the long run, produces a modification of the veno-occlusive mechanism and the tissues of the penis, which can lead to tissue damage”, as Dr. Carbonero clarifies. In reality, the research study information how the client was identified with such a condition: “Due to the constant suspicion, a spacious blood gas was gotten that exposed a pH compatible with ischemic priapism.”
And here’s what’s cool: The same study information how case reports suggest that propofol can trigger ischemic priapism. Resuted matter, right?
Well no: in the case that worries us here, the client got propofol for more than 12 hours before with no observable problems, which leads us to think that propofol was not the direct trigger. The researchers conclude: “The prevalence of coagulopathy in COVID-19 and the associated risk of death needs greater attention to its probability as a precipitating factor.” That is, the prolonged erection might have happened as a repercussion triggered by numerous factors at the very same time, among which both COVID-19 and propofol could play an essential function.
This implies that they have neither found that prolonged erection is ‘a new adverse effects’ of COVID-19 nor that this possible result prevails in males infected with the coronavirus. Rather, it appears an isolated occasion (and it appears that, in the meantime, the only one reported) of a case of ischemic priapism aggravated or complicated by COVID-19.
To dig much deeper into the matter, the scientists taking part in the research study say that more research study will be needed when it comes to hypercoagulation in COVID-19 patients.
Comprehending, then, this striking news, we can conclude that we do not know if the extended erection was brought on by the medication administered, COVID-19, maybe the basic health of the client (who had a history of obesity), or a mix of all these factors. In any case, it does not appear that the 2 circumstances are easily related, and this ought to not be the outcome of major concerns for COVID-19 positive guys.
