Dear members of ISSM,

Time flies…it is already longer than six months that I am serving the Society as your President.

As promised, I want to update you on the activities of ISSM after every meeting of the directors. The officers met at the ESSM meeting in Nice last February. We decided to organize a strategy meeting in 2017 to define goals, objectives, and the investments for the coming 5 years. ISSM is doing well, but we have to face the decreased amount of sponsorship monies, and we need to define and prioritize our activities for the future.

The scientific meeting chairs, Maarten Albersen (ESSM) and Wayne Hellstrom (ISSM), are working hard to put together a high level scientific meeting, in conjunction with ESSM, that will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, February 28th-March 3rd, 2018.

ISSM will no longer organize the traditional International Consultation on Sexual Medicine, but we decided to focus on topics that need to be updated and revised. For 2017-2018, these will be breast cancer and sexual functioning, robot prostatectomy and sexual functioning outcomes, and testosterone and CVD. Committees will be put together soon by the chair of the Consultation, Gerry Brock.

The ISSM world meeting in China was profitable; therefore, ISSM will send out a call for proposals for a round of grants of USD 50,000. In addition, we will offer 10 grants to attend the ESSM school in Budapest next October, as we have done in the past.

The website is continuously improving and is being updated. Soon, more topics will be placed in the online ISSM University. Furthermore, the Developing Countries Committee is organizing educational activities at several meetings, such as the recent meeting of the Pan African Urological Surgeons Association in Zimbabwe.

As you can see, ISSM is active, full of ideas and doing well thanks to the commitment of many of you. Please write to me with suggestions, ideas, proposals, or complaints… ISSM is YOURS.

Luca Incrocci,
ISSM President

Erectile dysfunction (ED) appears to be more common in men with psoriasis, but not in men with eczema (atopic dermatitis), scientists report. 

Previous research has shown a connection between ED and psoriasis, and the two conditions share some comorbidities, such as diabetes, depression, and heart disease. But it was not clear whether ED and eczema were similarly linked. 

Using a database of medical records from over 1.75 million men, the researchers found that ED prevalence was highest in men with psoriasis (12.8%) than in the general population (8.7) and in men with eczema (6.7%).

More details on the study, including the authors' thoughts on why ED was more common in men with psoriasis, are available here. 

The study was published online in January in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. 

Over the last few weeks, ISSM members have received emails soliciting submissions to a possible "predatory journal."  This journal's title is almost identical to our own flagship journal, The Journal of Sexual Medicine (JSM) while also mimicking the title of our Open Access journal Sexual Medicine.

We wish to stress these emails, despite the similarity of the journal title, are not referring to an official ISSM publication. Please see further details here.