Why research Peyronies? To understand asthma, heart disease, chronic cystitis ...

If Peyronie's is best understood as a hyperactive fibrosis disorder, then it makes sense to look at other fibrotic disorders for clues to Peyronie's. This 2007 article provides a nice overview of current thinkings on disorders of the fibrotic response (emphases mine, I've always been fond of moncytes ..):

The role of the fibrocyte, a bone marrow-derived m...[Lab Invest. 2007] - PubMed Result

... Human fibrocytes are mesenchymal progenitors that exhibit ... characteristics of hematopoietic stem cells, monocytes and fibroblasts. They likely represent the obligate intermediate stage of differentiation into mature mesenchymal cells of a bone marrow-derived precursor of the monocyte lineage ...

... human fibrocytes produce large quantities of extracellular matrix components and further differentiate into cells identical to the contractile myofibroblasts that emerge at the tissue sites during repair processes and in some fibrotic lesions. ...

...a causal link between fibrocyte accumulation and ongoing tissue fibrogenesis or vascular remodeling in response to tissue damage or hypoxia. Fibrocytes synthesizing new collagen or acquiring myofibroblast markers have been detected in human hypertrophic scars, in the skin of patients affected by nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, in human atherosclerotic lesions, and in pulmonary diseases characterized by repeated cycles of inflammation and repair, like asthma. The presence of fibrocyte-like cells has been reported in human chronic pancreatitis and chronic cystitis. Similar cells also populate the stroma surrounding human benign tumors...

Well, there you go. Perhaps understanding Peyronie's may provide valuable clues for understanding asthma, atherosclerosis (heart disease) and chronic pancreatitis. After all, the lesions of Peyronie's are much easier to biopsy than those of cardiac vessels or pulmonary alveoli. If that's not good for funding, I don't know what is.

I looked earlier for an association between keloid (hypertrophic) scars and Peyronie's, but I couldn't find any. That would be a good question for the Peyronie's Society forum though. For the record, I have both Peyronie's and a nasty keloid scar.

Chronic cystitis is the bane of urologists. One wonders if it could be the female equivalent to Peyronie's. Now I admit that's a bit nutty, but it wouldn't hurt to ask women with chronic cystitis if they have relatives with Dupuytren's contractures (they probably wouldn't know of male relatives with Peyronie's).

Update 7/4/07: After my wild speculation on Dupuytren's and chronic insterstitial cystitis I tried a Google search on the combo and got this tantalizing fragment from last year:

Dupuytren's contracture is associated with sprouting of substance ...
... 10 We propose that Dupuytren's contracture is an inflammatory disease dominated by mast cells, bearing similarities to interstitial cystitis. ...
ard.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/65/3/414

I swear I didn't know that was out there. Alas, I can't get at the full text of the article, I'll have to try it from my U account another time. It's the only one and it sounds like an aside deep in the text, but maybe my speculation wasn't quite as whacky as I thought it was ...