Thanks to the incessant spam, it’s become the most hyped of all operations but researchers said on Tuesday that most men who have had penis enlargement surgery are not satisfied with the results.

“For patients with psychological concern about the size of the penis - particularly if it is normal size - there is little point in offering them surgery because it makes no difference,” said Nim Christopher, a urologist at St Peter’s Andrology Center in London.

Christopher and his colleagues, who questioned 42 men who had the surgery, found the dissatisfaction rate was very high. Often the men requested another surgical procedure.

“The average increase in length is 1.3 cm (0.5 inches) which isn’t very much and the dissatisfaction rate was in excess of 70 percent,” said Christopher.

He added that spam e-mails advertising penis enlargement surgery were inaccurate and gave men unrealistic expectations.

Rather than having surgery, he and his colleagues, who reported the findings in the journal of European Urology, said the men should be referred for psychological counseling.

“We now know that the majority of these patients are dissatisfied after these procedures. Research should be directed toward non-surgical options,” said Yoram Vardi, of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, in an editorial in the journal.