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Viagra
May Restore Erections After Prostate Surgery By
Alison McCook Reuters
Health, April
28, 2003 NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who undergo surgery for prostate cancer may
ward off problems with erections by taking Viagra every night for nine
months after surgery, researchers said Monday. According
to the report, men who took nightly Viagra (sildenafil) for nine months
after having their prostate removed in a surgery known as radical
prostatectomy were more than seven times as likely to regain their normal,
pre-operative erectile functioning as men who received a placebo, or
inactive, drug. These
findings suggest that along with treating erectile dysfunction, Viagra can
also prevent the condition in the first place, study author Dr. Harin
Padma-Nathan of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles told
Reuters Health. "The
results of this study are so dramatic that every man undergoing (radical)
prostatectomy should consider this if he is interested in preserving
erections," Padma-Nathan said. Although
newer forms of the surgery do not involve cutting the nerves leading to
and from the penis, which are crucial to erections, even this
"nerve-sparing" radical prostatectomy can injure these nerves,
causing problems. During
the procedure, the researchers asked 23 and 28 men to take 50 milligrams
and 100 milligrams of Viagra, respectively, every night for nine months
staring four weeks after surgery. Another 25 men took a placebo during the
same time period. None of the men knew whether they were taking Viagra or
placebo. All
of the men had normal erectile function before surgery. After
nine months of treatment, study participants then spent another eight
weeks without taking any medication. Padma-Nathan
and his colleagues discovered that 27 percent of men who had received
Viagra -- regardless of dose -- had regained full erectile functioning,
equal to what they reported before undergoing surgery, a finding seen in
only 4 percent of men given placebo. These
findings, presented during the annual scientific meeting of the American
Urological Association in Chicago, suggest that Viagra "prevents the
degeneration of erection function following the surgery," Padma-Nathan
said in an interview. And
the difference between using and not using Viagra was
"dramatic," he added. "If
you don't do anything, it's not very good," he said.
"Intervention certainly made it a whole lot better." Typically,
men take either 50 or 100 milligrams of Viagra to treat erectile
dysfunction, and the current findings suggest that the lower dose is just
as effective at preventing the problem, he added. Previous
research in animals suggests that Viagra, along with increasing blood flow
to the penis, may actually help repair nerves that have been damaged
during surgery, Padma-Nathan noted. None
of the men taking Viagra reported any serious side effects from the
medication, and only two dropped out of the study, citing headache and
fatigue, the researcher said. Although
taking Viagra every night for nine months could be a significant expense
for some patients, Padma-Nathan noted that men who typically undergo
radical prostatectomy start taking Viagra after surgery and use it to
treat erectile problems for the rest of their lives. Given
that the men included in this study were in their mid-50s, that represents
a long time to take the drug, he said. "It's
actually cheaper to use it continuously for nine months and stopping it
altogether than using it intermittently for a couple times a week for the
rest of their lives," Padma-Nathan said. The
study was funded by Pfizer Inc., maker of Viagra. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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