It looks like men who have a hard time getting hard naturally better be ready to dispose all their Viagra as a new solution to erectile dysfunction has been developed by American scientists. That is if only they are fine with a penile prosthetic device – which grows to eight inches – as an alternative.
Perhaps the greatest leap of penile implants in about 40 years, a penis exoskeleton has been devised by a research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison using a memory metal called nitinol, which is a nickel-titanium alloy. It is heat-activated, meaning that it can change its shape at higher temperatures.
It works just like a natural penis that needs a form of heat to be fully erect. The penis exoskeleton is implanted to the penis which is flaccid at body temperature, but becomes hard and expands into a straightened, elongated shape when heated.
How exactly is the “bionic penis” going to be heated? Nope, it’s not by dipping the schlong into a steaming hot tub, but through a remote control device that is yet to be finalized by the researchers. But the idea is to have the heating tool waved over the penis, warming the nitinol implant via induction, and forming an erect penis with a bigger girth and length which is 8 inches at most.
Awkward boners may be experienced with this device as the researchers say that the nitinol changes shape when exposed to only a few degrees above body temperature. But given that, it gives an assurance for those who want to try that this penile implant should not be painful.
The researchers, led by urologist Brian Le, say that artificially induced hardness could go a long way to making men who’ve lost the ability to become erect feel good about themselves. But not so fast: the device needs a lot more testing before it becomes commercially available, with estimated release within five to ten years.
Le tells, “We’re hoping that, with a better device, a better patient experience, and a simpler surgery, more urologists would perform this operation, and more patients would want to try the device.”
Penile implants are not at all new. However, present technologies use inflatable pumps or roads that could cause tissue damage.
With the unique properties of nitinol, which is a superelastic metal already used in endovascular surgery, the male organ is given a sophisticated enhancement. That means that it can go back to its original shape after being heated.
This is not the case with other penile implants, where it is the other way around. The original shape is the stiffened elongated form and turns into a limp, slightly curved from when cooled down.
Another selling point of the heat-activated implant is that it works for everyone having an erectile dysfunction problem, unlike drugs like Viagra which doesn’t for everybody. The team makes a convincing point, saying that one-third of men with erectile dysfunction between the ages of 40 and 70 don’t respond to the drugs.
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
