Abstract
This work investigates the hardness and buckling force of penile prosthesis to further understand the rigidity of penile prosthesis before and after implantation. Evaluated herein are four prosthetic samples (inflatable 3, semi-rigid 1), five realities (inflatable 1, semi-rigid 4), and one after implantation of prosthesis. The hardness is measured with a hardness tester by pressing the tester’s indentor to the surface of the specimen. In addition, a patient after implantation is evaluated with respect to the hardness of penile versus various numbers of pumping. The buckling force of the prosthesis is also determined by a push-pull gauge and special designed sampling table. Results in this study demonstrate that although the inflatable prosthesis could only be pumped to a certain amount of hardness, hardness and buckling force correlate well with each other. After reaching the extreme hardness, prostheses can even be further pumped a few times. However, continuous pumping only puts more tension on the prosthetic material without increasing any hardness and could induce to mechanical failure of prosthesis. Results also indicate that the buckling force decreases with increasing length of the semi-rigid prostheses, and, then, enlarged when the prosthesis has a larger diameter. This in vitro non-invasive mechanical measurement of the rigidity in penile prosthesis can provide not only clinicians with further information about the penile prosthesis before implantation, but also the patients with more confidence in the prosthesis usage after implantation.
An Experimental Methodology to Evaluate the Rigidity of Penile Prostheses in Vitro
