Severe arterial insufficiency in impotence confirmed with an improved angiographic technique: the impact of smoking and some other etiologic factors.

Arteriography of the penile arteries in patients with pharmacologic erection has been performed by our group since 1983. Pathological Doppler findings and weak response to locally administered papaverine or alpha-blocking agents in these impotent men led to pharmacoangiography in 17 of 372 patients with erectile dysfunction; of these 372 patients 130 (35%) had subnormal penile blood flow according to Doppler ultrasonography. Only one had a proximal lesion (occlusion of the right common iliac artery) while the rest had distal lesions. Three patients were nonsmokers and the remaining 14 patients (82%) were smokers or had smoked previously. Only 2 of the 14 had other predisposing diseases.