ORIGINAL: Traumatic Penile Injury: An Analysis of the Patient Age with Aetiological Type and Injury Severity in a Single Centre

West Afr J Med April 2024; 41(4): 414-420 PMID: 39003513

Abstract

Background: Penile trauma is associated with debilitating complications. Apart from its sparse literature, contextually relevant evidence on aetiology and standardized severity grading, and its stratification by legal age are needed. This study aimed to describe the frequency, aetiology and injury severity grade of patients, and explore the association of specific factors by legal age.

Subjects, materials and methods: A single-centre retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in our centre. Male patients with penile trauma managed by urologists were included. Data on age, year of presentation, aetiology, penile injury extent and co-existing genitourethral injuries were obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics were undertaken using SPSS and MedCalc. Pvalue < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Forty-two patient records were analyzed. The median age and interquartile range for legal minors and legal adults were 9.5 (5.0-14.8) years and 31.0 (22.5-41.0) years, and they constituted 28.6% (n=12) and 71.4% (n=30) of the study population respectively. Penile trauma was isolated in 26.2% (n=11) of the total population.Its annual frequency was below the median volume between 2001 and 2008 but shifted to a rate above the average level between 2017 and 2021. The rate of conveyor belt-related aetiology and high-grade trauma was 41.7% and 75.0% in legal minors while it was 26.1% and 53.3% respectively in legal adults.

Conclusions: Grade IV trauma was the most predominant while conveyor belt injury was the most common cause of the injury. Albeit limitations of statistical comparison, the rate of conveyor belt injury and high-grade trauma was numerically high in legal minors.