Penile fillers are not risk-free, doctor warns after Nigerian-British man’s death

The death of Nigerian-British businessman and social media influencer Igho Ubiribo has prompted a warning that so-called non-surgical penile enlargement procedures still carry serious medical risks.

Mobola Savage, an aesthetic medicine and dermatology physician, said penile filler should not be treated as a risk-free alternative to surgery. She described it as an invasive procedure involving highly vascular anatomy.

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And perhaps the biggest lesson from this tragedy is that non-surgical does not mean risk-free. Penile filler is still an invasive medical procedure involving highly vascular anatomy

Ubiribo, 43, died in March after undergoing a penis enlargement procedure while on holiday in Bangkok, Thailand. Reports from an inquest at the Inner West London Coroners’ Court said an unnamed clinic injected 40 millilitres of hyaluronic acid and lidocaine into his penis. A UK coroner later ruled that the cosmetic procedure caused a fatal pulmonary embolism. A postmortem examination reportedly found material in his lungs consistent with the hyaluronic acid used in the treatment.

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From what has been reported, this wasn’t penile enlargement surgery in the conventional sense. It was non-surgical penile augmentation using Hyaluronic acid filler, a treatment primarily intended to increase girth, not true penile length

Savage said the procedure was not conventional penile enlargement surgery. It was non-surgical penile augmentation with hyaluronic acid filler, a treatment primarily intended to increase girth rather than true penile length.

“What immediately stood out to me was the reported 40ml administered in one treatment,” Savage said. She acknowledged that penile augmentation requires considerably larger filler volumes than facial aesthetics, but said the reported amount raised an important question about how volume should be approached. She said augmentation did not necessarily need to happen in one session and should be tailored to a patient’s anatomy, tissue capacity and desired outcome, with further treatment performed progressively where appropriate.

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What immediately stood out to me was the reported 40ml administered in one treatment

Savage also cautioned patients against assuming that more filler means better treatment. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said, arguing that the appropriate volume should depend on the individual patient rather than serve as a measure of quality.

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How many mLs am I getting?