Wednesday 6 August 2008

Impotence drugs help treat brain tumours

Impotence drugs may help carry cancer-fighting drugs through the brain to treat malignant tumours, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

Tests in rats showed two erectile dysfunction drugs -- Schering-Plough's Levitra and Pfizer's Viagra -- helped carry a chemotherapy drug past the blood-brain barrier, the team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles said.

Rats with brain tumours lived 42 days when injected with the cancer drug adriamycin. But when they also got Levitra, known generically as vardenafil, the rats survived an average of 53 days. Levitra appeared to be more effective, the researchers reported in the journal Brain Research.

Levitra and Viagra, known generically as sildenafil, are in a class of drugs known as PDE5 inhibitors. They were originally tested as heart drugs because they increase blood flow in small vessels.

Complete Article: Reuters UK

Check testosterone in all men with ED, new guidance advises

New guidelineshave published this week in the Journal of Sexual Medicine called for GPs to routinely test all patients with erectile dysfunction, to establish whether the condition is caused by low testosterone levels.

The guidance, from the British Society for Sexual Medicine (BSSM), shows that testosterone deficiency syndrome (TDS) is a treatable cause of male impotence.

Low testosterone levels are associated with reduced sexual health, loss of libido and lack of responsiveness to the PDE5 inhibitor drugs that treat erectile dysfunction. Around 1 in 3 men with erectily dysfunction also have TDS.

TDS, once diagnosed by means of a test of serum testosterone levels, can be treated with testosterone therapy.

Professor Pierre-Marc Bouloux, consultant in endocrinology and diabetes at the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, London, said: ‘Testosterone deficiency syndrome is more common than GPs realise and it is important that it is recognised as a potential cause of erectile dysfunction.

See for complete article and source:
Pulse Today

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Erectile Dysfunction Drugs Used in Chemotherapy Treatment

Levitra and Viagra are being used to break through the blood-brain barrier that carry chemotherapy drugs to malignant brain tumors it was reported in the Brain Research Journal.
This class of drugs are known as PDE5 inhibitors and combined with adriamycin are effective in breaking through the blood brain barrier of the tumor itself but not the larger blood brain barrier.
The result is smaller tumors and a longer survival rate and healthy brain tissue is not affected. Viagra and Levitra were originally used as heart drugs to increase the blood flow to small blood vessels.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN2848807420080728?feedType=RSS