Decoding penile pathology and imaging techniques.

A picture-based radiology primer on penile fractures, priapism, Peyronie's disease and tumors

Journal: Radiologia | Published: 2026-06-02 | Type: Journal Article | PMID: 42401435 Authors: Bravo-González M, Baleato-González S, Flores-Ríos E, Corral-De la Calle M, Espiñeira-Covelo P, García-Figueiras R (Servicio de Radiología, Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago de Compostela; Servicio de Radiología, Complejo Asistencial de Ávila; Servicio de Cirugía General, Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago de Compostela) Funding/COI: No funding listed; authors declare no conflicts of interest

Summary

This is a pictorial review, not an original study. It walks through how vascular, traumatic, infectious, benign and malignant penile conditions look on imaging (Mondor's disease, corpus cavernosum thrombosis, priapism, penile fracture, cavernositis, Peyronie's disease, and primary or metastatic penile cancer) and how to tell them apart on scans.

Claims

• Covers five categories of penile pathology: vascular (Mondor's disease, cavernosal thrombosis, erectile dysfunction, priapism), traumatic (fracture, intracavernous and extra-albugineal hematoma), inflammatory/infectious (abscess, gangrenous cavernositis), benign (Peyronie's disease and others), and malignant (primary and metastatic lesions)
• Presents representative cases across imaging modalities to illustrate differential diagnosis
• Frames radiologist familiarity with these entities as directly affecting diagnostic accuracy and downstream clinical management

Study Quality

This is a narrative pictorial review built around illustrative cases, not a systematic review, meta-analysis or original research study. There's no stated methodology for how cases were selected, no sample size, no comparison across imaging modalities on diagnostic accuracy metrics (sensitivity, specificity), and no quantitative outcomes data. That's not a flaw for this genre of article, but it means none of its content constitutes new evidence, only a curated teaching summary of existing knowledge.

Red Flags

• No case selection criteria disclosed, so it's unclear if examples were chosen to be representative or simply available/convenient
• No quantitative diagnostic performance data (no sensitivity/specificity/accuracy figures for any modality or condition)
• Abstract gives no indication of how many cases underlie the "representative cases," making reproducibility of the review's claims impossible to assess

Strengths

• Multi-institutional radiology authorship (two hospital sites) with a surgical co-author, suggesting some cross-disciplinary input
• Broad, clinically relevant scope spanning common ED presentations from trauma to malignancy
• No funding or conflicts of interest to weigh against the content

Verdict

This is an educational pictorial review for radiologists, useful as a reference for recognizing penile pathology on imaging, but it contributes no new data, evidence, or outcomes and shouldn't be read as a study result. Treat it as a teaching aid, not research.