An updated approach to correcting impotence in elderly men.

A myth about transurethral prostatectomy is that it renders the patient unable to achieve an erection. There is no evidence that this is so, nor any evidence that prostatic hypertrophy itself causes impotence. It is imperative that the patient understand what the prosthesis will and will not do for him. All currently available devices provide a penile shaft rigid enough for intromission, but because all devices occupy only the corpora cavernosa, the erect penis will not be as long or as great in circumference as the patient's physiologic erections once were.