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News. VIAGRA also used for...
Viagra
May Be More Than Just An Impotence Drug.
Viagra will soon be used to treat more
than just Erectile Dysfunction.
The world famous impotence drug helps patients
with pulmonary hypertension walk farther and do
better overall, a new German study has found.
When used to treat erectile dysfunction, Viagra
relaxes the smooth muscle of blood vessels and
increases blood flow. The same effect seems to
help those with pulmonary hypertension, claims
lead researcher Dr. Hossein A. Ghofrani, a physician
at the University Hospital, Justus-Liebig-University
Giessen in Giessen, Germany. His finding appears
in the July 2 issue of the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology.
Ghofrani and his colleagues evaluated 73 patients
with pulmonary hypertension, a condition in which
the blood pressure in the arteries that supply
the lungs is extremely high. All were treated
with iloprost, a drug that helps open up blood
vessels. It's commonly used overseas, but it's
not marketed in the United States.
Then, the researchers added Viagra for the 14
patients whose conditions worsened despite their
initial good response to iloprost.
Adding Viagra reversed their deterioration on
the standard walk test given to measure their
progress. Before the iloprost, these patients
could walk about 712 feet in six minutes. Once
they took the iloprost, they could walk 1,000
feet. After 18 months, however, the results declined
to 840 feet, on average. But when Viagra was added,
their six-minute walk distance went up to 1,135
feet.
The results exceeded expectations, Ghofrani says:
"The best thing we expected to achieve was
to stabilize the patients, but they stabilized
and then improved."
"And they were no longer on the transplant
list," he adds. Patients with the condition
who deteriorate even on long-term therapy are
commonly considered urgent candidates for lung
transplants.
No serious
adverse events were reported with the Viagra use,
Ghofrani adds, including no reports of unwanted
erections.
In the United States, more than 100,000 women
and 67,000 men were hospitalized with pulmonary
hypertension in 1998, the latest year posted by
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sometimes, doctors call the condition secondary
pulmonary hypertension if it is the result of
another condition such as heart or lung disease.
It's termed primary pulmonary hypertension if
the cause can't be pinpointed, although genetics
are thought to play a role.
The new study is believed to be the first report
of this particular combination of drugs to treat
pulmonary hypertension.
But
other combination therapies have been studied
and are being prescribed, says Dr. Bruce H. Brundage,
medical director of The Heart Institute of the
Cascades in Oregon, who is familiar with the latest
study.
"The
importance of this study is it is one of the first
to report the fact that two drugs are better than
one" for pulmonary hypertension treatment,
he says.
Brundage
predicts the approach will ultimately become common.It
makes sense, Brundage says, because the condition
is a complex disease. "In the pathophysiology
of pulmonary hypertension, we recognize that there
are at least three pathways of internally generated
compounds that affect the pulmonary arteries,"
he explains".
All these compounds are made in our own vessels,"
he says. They are prostacyclin and nitric oxide,
which open up blood vessels, and endothelin, which
constricts them.
Viagra works, Brundage says, by inhibiting a compound
that breaks down nitric oxide: "You prevent
the breakdown of nitric oxide and the vessel does
not constrict."
Iloprost works by opening up the blood vessels,
as does Flolan (epoprostenol), a similar drug
marketed in the United States. Other medications
affect the action of endothelin.
Ghofrani says he hopes to do additional studies
on the drug combination.
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