Rear tip extenders

[Musson]

As a newbie here I’ve been reading about rear tip extenders including some of the scientific literature. However, I’m not sure I understand their purpose and pros and cons. I would appreciate it if one of the members here smarter than me can explain their role in lay terms. Thanks in advance.

[Lost Sheep]

Two purposes.

To precisely adjust the overall length of the implant. Implants come in different lengths and a man who requires an intermediate length gets a rear tip extender for a custom fit. At least one surgeon even trims the RTE (rear tip extender) for a REALLY custom fit.

To adjust where the tubing that connects the implant tubes to the rest of the mechanism. The surgeon, when making the incision at the start of the surgery cannot know just how deep your crus is. a man with a very deep crus might need a couple of RTEs so the location of the tubing will match up with the incision location. Otherwise, the surgeon would have to extend the size of the incision (which might weaken the tunica albuginea, I would guess). You want the incision to be as small as possible.

[tomas1]

Some surgeons probably like mine, don't bother trying to maximize the length of the cylinders and simply stack RTEs to allow the tubing to exit the incision in a straight shot instead of having the tubing go along the crus and out of the incision.

Dr Eid and possibly some other doctors try to never use RTEs and I wish mine had done that.

[oldbeek]

I have a 3 inch deep cruses. With infra pubic entry to make the tubing come out below my pubic bone the dr used 5.5 cm of RTE on each cylinder. Makes for a very stable erection and I am maxed out in length.

[newbie443]

To expand on this a bit, not all surgeries have the tube connection to the cylinders match the incision. In fact I would guess that most do not. In most cases the connection is down inside the proximal portion of the corpus. This only becomes a concern if the crus cannot be dilatated enough for the tubing to go down inside the corpus with the cylinder. This is how many surgeries are done not just the ones by the doctors who use no or minimum RTE's. IIRC there are even 2 types of cylinders for this. The reason some doctors do not like to use RTE's is they believe that RTE's make an implant less stable. And at least one doctor will trim the proximal end of the hard tip of the implant cylinder of a longer size device and use it instead of a shorter cylinder and adding RTE's. But in cases where corpus in the crus is very narrow the RTE's must be used. For men with very narrow corpus both proximal and distal there are narrow cylinders that can be used.

AMS cylinders are made in 3cm increments. Coloplast in 2cm increments. RTE's are made in .5 cm increments to bridge the gaps in the sizes. This is the main reason for RTE's and why most surgeries with AMS cylinders will have a max of 2.5 cm RTE's and Coloplast will have a max of 1.5 cm RTE's.

There is most likely more to this but I am not a doctor and this is just my understanding of this. I hope this helps some.

[Musson]

Great explanations. Thank you Brothers.