Foreign Body in the Penile Prosthesis Reservoir

A 55-year-old male patient reported a mechanical failure 4 months after inflatable AMS® 700 CX penile prosthe-sis (IPP) implantation. Patient underwent surgical exploration and the cylinders and pump were removed and 
replaced with a new IPP but the reservoir was left in situ. One month later he complained a second time for me-
chanical failure again, and a 3-4 cm foreign body was observed inside the reservoir during abdominal ultrasound 
(Figure 1) and was confirmed after a scond surgical procedure (Figures 2 and 3). 

Urology Department. Hospital del Henares. Avda. Marie Curie s/n. 28822. Coslada. Madrid. Spain.
*Correspondence: Urology Department. Hospital del Henares. Avda. Marie Curie s/n. 28822. Coslada. Madrid. Spain.
Phone number: + 34 911912000. Fax number + 34 911912284. E-mail: pgabad@hotmail.com.
Received November 2015 & Accepted February 2016

PICTORIAL

Pablo Garrido-Abad*, Bryan Sinués-Ojas, Laura Martínez-Blázquez, Pablo Conde-Caturla, Delfina Estévez-
Sánchez, Manuel Fernández-Arjona

Keywords: foreign body; penile prosthesis

Pictorial    2930

Figure 1. Ultrasound revealing an echogenic density inside the 
reservoir

Figure 2. Extracting reservoir from the patient Figure 3. Foreign body inside the reservoir



The reservoir was retrieved and a new reservoir was 
placed. The microbiology analysis did not identiy pus 
cells, no organism was visualized on gram stain and no 
growth was identified on culture. In our opinion, this 
foreign body could correspond to a detachment of the 
Parylene® coating of the internal reservoir surface. 
Complications of retained reservoirs include: migra-
tion, infection, erosion into the bladder, sigmoid colon, 
neobladders, seminal vesicles and ureters(1). To the best 
of our knowledge, we herein report the first case of a 
foreign body into an IPP reservoir.
The patient remained well at follow-up visits both 1 
month and 6 months after the procedure, with no me-
chanical failure reported. 

References
 1.  Cui T, Terlecki R, Mirzazadeh M. Infrequent 

Reservoir‐Related Complications of Urologic 
Prosthetics: A Case Series and Literature 
Review. Sexual Medicine. 2015; 3: 334-338.

Foreign body in penile prosthesis-Garrido-Abad et al.

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