I have a slight bend to the right and upward about 25 degrees and there is no pain. I cannot feel anything unusual along the shaft. My urologist has recommended transdermal verapamil. Can you comment on any recent information for this treatment?

Transdermal verapamil has been available for many years now, but unfortunately there are no published studies which have demonstrated that this preparation of verapamil results in penetration of the drug down into the diseased tunica albuginea. In fact, one study showed that there was no penetration at all in a series of men who were exposed to the drug. A recently published study looked at three different types of transdermal application for PD including transdermal verapamil. This report suggested that the verapamil gel resulted in marked improvement over the other two. Unfortunately, it was not a well-conducted study and therefore is at this time not a treatment that I would recommend to any of my patients.