Ethnic variations in the prevalence of male sexual dysfunction

Prof. Ganesan P Adaikan


Recorded at 19th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health - Sexual Health & Rights: A Global Challenge Göteborg (Sweden) - June 21 – 25, 2009


An epidemiological study was carried out in a cohort of 923 male patients presenting with sexual dysfunction (SD) at the Andrology clinic, NUH to evaluate the community prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) among the different races in Singapore and how it varied with the marital status, medical illnesses and lifestyle derangements.

The incidence for SD was 63% among the Chinese, 7.4% for Indians and 8.1 % for Malays and 8.3% for the other races (including foreigners). Medical illnesses resulting in organic causes of ED were more common among Malays (48%) compared to Chinese (38%) or Indians (40.4%). For instance, incidence of hypertension was 30.8% among Malays when compared to Chinese (22.1%) and Indians (16%). As for lipids, 67.9% and 39% of a mixed patient pool for total cholesterol (268) and TG (251) respectively had higher than normal levels of the two lipids. Among the 424 Chinese SD patients cohort, 13.9% presented with non-consummation of their marriages. This figure was 8.1% for Malays and 19.1% for Indians.
Our study showed that non-consummation of marriages was one of the causes of subfertility. A third of the ED patients had less than normal level (less than 3.2 ng per ml) of testosterone correlating with low desire for frequency of coitus and age. It is seen from our epidemiological study on the patient pool that life style factors, hormonal, environmental and other socio-environmental and racial issues do play a role in contributing to sexual dysfunction including non-consummation predisposing to marital disharmony.