How To: Smartphone Assessment of Penile Deformity

Another example of  researchers bending new technology to meet their desires:

“Validity and Reliability of a Smartphone Application for the Assessment of Penile Deformity in Peyronie’s Disease,” Ryan S. Hsi, James M. Hotaling, Andrea L. Hartzler, Sarah K. Holt, Thomas J. Walsh, Journal of Sexual Medicine, epub April 3, 2013. The authors, at the University of Washington, reveal their method:

“To assess penile curvature, 15 single cylinders of malleable penile prostheses were molded to varying curvature angles. Three blinded observers nonsequentially measured the angle of curvature for each prosthetic cylinder using a protractor, goniometer, and UWPEN [the University of Washington Peyronie's Examination Network]. To assess girth narrowing, six clay models of the penile shaft were constructed to represent conditions of normal, partial hourglass, circumferential hourglass, and pencil narrowing. Girth was measured using a ruler and UWPEN by the same blinded observers.”

(Thanks to investigator Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.)