European urology. 2009;55: 1135-43.
An important study of excellent quality to evaluate the effectiveness of erection recovery after surgery for prostate cancer, using a sural nerve graft (from the side of the leg) to "reconnect" the nerve that generates the erection.
107 patients took part in the study. They were assigned to 2 groups. The first received the sural nerve graft (66 patients) and the second did not (41 patients).
After 2 years of follow-up 71% of the patients who received the graft had an adequate penile erection; while in the group that did not receive the graft the number was 67%.
This study shows that there is no improvement in erection with this surgery in patients, in addition to the increase in surgical time (The average time to place the graft is 164 minutes).
