A team of doctors in the Johns Hopkins University is making waves among the medical fraternity, after they have come out successfully from a research, which proves that a PDE5 inhibitor like Viagra can treat and prevent recurring priapism in men. Priapism is a disturbing and discomforting disorder among men, as men suffer from fatal, recurring erections that can have a debilitating effect on his normal erectile functions, during each spell of priapism. Generally, men go through two types of priapism ischemic or non-ischemic. The first case of priapism occurs due to idiopathic reasons, or reasons related to drug use, while the non-ischemic priapism is usually caused by traumas and other psychological factors. Priapism can occur either as an isolated episode, or occur recurrently at frequent intervals, almost everyday. Previous researches have aptly demonstrated and established that a dysregulated phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of priapism, giving a clear indication that PDE5 may serve as a molecular target for the treatment or prevention of the disorder. Dr. Burnett and his colleagues in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA focused on this hypothesis to carry out the path breaking research. The research team administered a long term PDE5 inhibitor treatment to three men with priapism due to sickle cell disease and a man with complaint of recurrent idiopathic priapism. They were given 25 to 30 mg oral dosage of Sildenafil (Viagra) in the morning three times a week, for a long period of time. The patients were closely followed and examined for a period of three to eleven months, and it was found that the rate of occurrence of priapism gradually came down to very rare or occasional. The research team said that the encouraging results prove the dysregulated PDE5 hypothesis. It shows that this treatment resets the erectile regulatory function of PDE5 back to normal and protects the penis from episodes of priapism. The revolutionary research defies conventional wisdom and judgment that Viagra and its class of drugs are contraindicated in patients with priapism. It would indeed be tough for a layman to fathom the fact that an erection enhancing medication like Viagra is used in the prevention of an uncontrollable and never waning erection. The highly complicated research based on cellular regulatory model may baffle you, as it challenges your traditional logic, but never forget that every discovery has been received in the same light. |
