Peyronie’s disease (PD) is a connectivetissue disorder which can result in penile deformity. The prevalence ofdiagnosed PD in the United States (US) has been estimated to be 0.5% in adultmales, but there is limited additional information comparing definitive andprobable PD cases. We conducted a population-based survey to assess PD prevalenceusing a convenience-sample of adult men participating in the ResearchNowgeneral population panel. Respondents were categorized according to PD status(definitive, probable, no PD) and segmented by US geographic region, education,and income levels. Of the 7,711 respondents, 57 (0.7%) had definitive PD while850 (11.0%) had probable PD. Using univariate logistic regression modeling,older age (18–24 vs 24+) (OR = 0.721; 95% CI = 0.570,0.913),Midwest/Northeast/West geographic region (South vs Midwest/Northeast/West) (OR= 0.747; 95% CI = 0.646,0.864), and higher income level (<25K vs 25K+) (OR =0.820; 95% CI = 0.673,0.997) were each significantly associated with reducedodds of having a definitive/probable PD diagnosis compared with no PD diagnosis.When all three variables were entered in a stepwise multivariable logisticregression, only age (OR = 0.642; 95% CI = 0.497, 0.828) and region (OR =0.752; 95% CI = 0.647, 0.872) remained significant. This study is the first toreport PD prevalence by geographic region and income, and it advocates that theprevalence of PD in the US may be higher than previously cited. Further, giventhe large discrepancy between definitive PD cases diagnosed by a physician andprobable cases not diagnosed by a physician, much more needs to be done toraise awareness of this disease.
