Aug. 6, 2004 — Men with low erectile dysfunction new drugs
levels who suffer from erectile erectile dysfunction pills
and have tried Viagra without success may benefit from adding a testosterone gel to their impotence treatment plan.

Nearly 30% to 50% of men with erectile dysfunction who take Viagra don’t respond adequately to treatment. The reason could be low levels of the sex hormone testosterone, according to a new study published in the Journal of Urology.

Low levels of the hormone could lead to a low sex drive and erectile dysfunction, viagra online pharmacy, fatigue, and buy sildenafil citrate in men.

The study tracked 75 men aged 18-80 years old with low levels of testosterone and erectile dysfunction. All the men were in stable, heterosexual relationships and had failed to respond to treatment with 100 milligrams of Viagra.

For 12 weeks, the men took Viagra in erectile dysfunction
with either the testosterone gel (AndroGel) or a placebo gel. The gel is applied to the skin and is absorbed slowly resulting in an increased blood level of testosterone. Viagra improves erectile dysfunction without causing an increase in testosterone levels.

Researchers gauged the men’s sexual function, quality of life, and testosterone levels at the start of the survey and every four weeks throughout the study.

The men using the testosterone gel along with Viagra improved in every category. Men receiving testosterone gel reported a 34% improvement in impotence compared with a 17% improvement seen in men taking the placebo gel. They also reported a 28% improvement in orgasmic function compared with only a 4% improvement reported in men taking the placebo.

Overall satisfaction also improved, with men receiving AndroGel reporting a 32% improvement compared with a 10% improvement in overall satisfaction in men on placebo.

The benefits were noted about four weeks into the study.

The researchers conclude that men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction should be screened for low testosterone before beginning therapy and using testosterone gel along with Viagra may be better for men with erectile dysfunction and low testosterone levels than just taking Viagra alone.

June 8, 2005 — The FDA has approved Viagra’s active ingredient to treat pulmonary improve impotence
, a rare, life-shortening lung disorder that causes high blood pressure in the lungs.

Viagra’s maker, Pfizer, a WebMD sponsor, announced the approval in a news release. Pfizer will repackage Viagra’s key ingredient (sildenafil) and market it as Revatio.

Revatio would be used to improve exercise ability in patients with pulmonary hypertension, says Pfizer. The approved dose is limited to 20 milligrams three times daily. The white, round pills will look different from Viagra’s blue diamonds and should be available by mid-July, says Pfizer.

Rare Condition

Pulmonary hypertension involves original viagra
high pressure in the blood vessels that lead from the heart to the lungs. It affects an estimated 100,000 people worldwide, says Pfizer.

Most cases of pulmonary hypertension are due to some underlying condition, such as chronic lung or heart disease. Nearly 300 cases, mostly women in their 30s, are diagnosed per year, says the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). There is no known cause.

Symptoms include difficulty breathing, dizziness, and fatigue. Without treatment, patients live less than three years from the time of diagnosis, on average, says Pfizer.

Another oral drug, Tracleer, is also used to treat the condition. Revatio’s effectiveness hasn’t been evaluated in patients taking Tracleer, says Pfizer. The drug company says Revatio is the first oral treatment approved for patients with an early stage of the progressive condition.

Study’s Results

The FDA’s approval was based on a study of 277 people with pulmonary hypertension, says Pfizer. Patients were randomly assigned to get a placebo or 20, 40, or 80 milligrams of Revatio three times daily.

After 12 weeks, all three Revatio groups showed “highly drug for treatment of erectile dysfunction improvements” in the distance they could walk in six minutes, compared with the placebo group, says Pfizer. Average pressure in the lung arteries and other heart functions also improved with Revatio, and in a year-long trial, 94% of patients taking Revatio were still alive, says Pfizer.

No particular dose had an advantage, and the lowest dose was approved.

Side Effects

Pfizer says Revatio was generally well tolerated, with side effects similar to those seen with Viagra.

The most common side effects for Revatio were headache, erectile dysfunction tabs
, flushing, insomnia, and nosebleeds. Viagra’s most common side effects are headache, facial flushing, and upset stomach; less common (and brief) side effects are bluish vision, blurred vision, or free viagra without prescription
to light, says Pfizer.

Pfizer also recently said it is talking with the FDA about possible label changes to Viagra regarding extremely rare reports of vision loss.rare reports of vision loss. The drug company says there is no evidence that those rare cases occurred more often in men taking Viagra. Pfizer says no such problems were seen in clinical trials of Viagra, and no cases were noted in the Revatio news release.

Ongoing Care Needed

It’s important to get ongoing medical care for pulmonary hypertension, says the NHLBI. The NHBLI also recommends walking for patients who can do so, as well as eating healthfully, getting enough rest, and not smoking. Relaxation exercises, stress reduction, and a positive attitude may also help patients stay active for as long as possible, says the NHLBI.

Jan. 7, 2004 — Viagra can do wonders for men. But a new study shows it also improves sex for some postmenopausal women.

The findings come from a research team led by sexual-function gurus Jennifer R. Berman, MD, and Laura A. Berman, PhD. The impotence meds
study, funded by Viagra maker Pfizer Inc., evaluated 202 postmenopausal women diagnosed with female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD). This disorder is defined as distress from an inability to attain or maintain sexual excitement.

Half the women were treated with Viagra; the other half got inactive placebo pills. Many of the women who got the placebo reported improved genital sensation. Some even reported more sexual satisfaction. But both of these citrate pfizer sildenafil were much more common among women who took Viagra.

The little blue pill didn’t work for women who, in addition to FSAD, also had something called hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD. While many women with FSAD have difficulties with genital blood flow — suggesting a physical problem that Viagra can help — women with HSDD may be more likely to have an underlying emotional or relationship problem leading to lack of sexual desire.

“Unresolved emotional or relational issues should be addressed before beginning medical therapies,” Berman and colleagues stress. Their report appears in the December 2003 issue of The Journal of Urology.

Viagra, Genital Sensation, and Sexual Satisfaction

Women were included in the study if they were postmenopausal or if they had a hysterectomy. Their ages ranged from 30 to 71 with an average age of about 51.

The Berman team focused on the women’s answers to two questions after taking Viagra or placebo:

• After taking the study medication, the sensation/feeling in my genital (vagina, labia, clitoris) area during intercourse or stimulation seemed to be: (a) more than before, (b) less than before, or (c) unchanged.
• After taking the study medication, intercourse and/or foreplay was (a) pleasant and satisfying; better than before taking the study medication; (b) unpleasant; worse than before the study medication; (c) unchanged; no difference; or (d) pleasant but still not like it used to be or I would like it to be.

Among placebo recipients, 44% reported cialis vs viagra
in the first question and 28% reported improvement in the second question.

Among all Viagra recipients, 57% reported improvement in the first question and 42% reported improvement in the second question.

But among Viagra recipients with sexual arousal disorder who did not have HSDD, the results were more striking: 69% reported improvement in the first question. This group was eight times more likely to report improvement than women without HSDD who got placebo.

Similarly, among Viagra recipients with sexual arousal disorder who did not have HSDD 50% reported improvement in the second question. This group was 11 times more likely to report improvement than non-HSDD women who got placebo.

The authors note that women who respond to Viagra may need to have normal levels of estrogen and testosterone. For many postmenopausal women, that may mean menopausal erectile dysfunction advices
therapy. In the present study, the women had normal hormone levels or were receiving menopausal replacement therapy.

SOURCE: Berman, J.R. The Journal of Urology, December 2003; vol 170: pp 2333-2338.

June 28, 2005 — Pfizer officials say they have found no sign of increased
blindness risk in men taking its drug Viagra.

Pfizer staff have reviewed all reports of eye-related events since the drug
has been on the market, according to a news release from the pharmaceutical
company.

“There is no evidence that Viagra causes blindness or any other serious
ocular condition,” says Joseph Feczko, MD, in the news release. Feczko is
Pfizer’s chief medical officer.

Pfizer is a WebMD sponsor.

Rare Vision Problem

“Men taking Viagra are at no greater risk for blindness than men of
similar age and health not taking the medicine,” says Feczko.

That includes a rare vision problem called nonarteritic anterior ischemic
optic neuropathy (NAION), says Feczko. NAION is a painless swelling of the
optic nerve that causes a rapid reduction in vision.

A journal report earlier this year noted
NAION in 14 Viagra users. Most had other health problems or
structural eye problems that raised their risk of NAION. None of the men in the
study went blind, although their vision loss was permanent and reportedly
started within 24-36 hours of taking Viagra.

Pfizer: No Evidence Seen in More Than 27 Million Users

“After more than 10 years of rigorous clinical study and worldwide
safety drug dysfunction erectile
of a medicine used by more than 27 million men, there is no
evidence to suggest a link between Viagra and blindness or other serious ocular
events,” says Feczko.

“In addition, several studies specifically looking into the effect of
Viagra in the eye by Pfizer as well as independent ophthalmologic experts found
Viagra to have no serious adverse effects on the eye,” he says.

Pfizer, FDA Discussing Label Changes

According to Pfizer’s statement,
the company is still talking to the FDA about changing Viagra’s label to
reflect rare vision problems in men who have used the drug.

The update would reflect rare reports of NAION in some men who have used the
drug.

However, the FDA concluded that no causal relationship between Viagra and
NAION has been established, says Pfizer.

Talks between Pfizer and the FDA were first reported in May.

Label Changes for Other ED Drugs?

Other erectile erectile dysfunction pills
drugs may also update their labels.

“It is Pfizer’s understanding that the FDA has asked that similar
information be included in the labels of all oral ED (erectile dysfunction)
medicines,” the company’s statement reads.

Patients should consult their doctors about using Viagra and follow the
drug’s drug for treatment of erectile dysfunction information, as with any other medicine, says Pfizer.

June 19, 2000 — A dollar spent on Viagra is spent just as efficiently as a
dollar spent on kidney dialysis, a new study shows. Experts agree that the math
is right, but whether it justifies insurance coverage for the male potency drug
is a bone of contention.

“There is a significant loss of quality of life that comes from erectile
dysfunction,” the lead researcher of the study, Kenneth J. Smith, MD, tells
WebMD. “One thing that motivated me to look at this is that I am a primary
care doctor. I am seeing men with erectile dysfunction having to fill out
insurance forms to justify Viagra treatment. What prompted the insurance
carriers to set up so many barriers for some men to get Viagra who would
clearly benefit from it? I see Viagra use more as a health issue and a
quality-of-life issue than as a lifestyle issue.”

Smith, who is associate director of the internal medicine residency program
at Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh, based his calculations on several key
assumptions, such as the average age of the Viagra user and the average number
of times he would use it per month.

Researchers also took into account that this medication would not work for
some men and that some men would have side effects. In every case, they chose
figures that would make it harder to show a cost benefit for the drug. Even so,
Viagra was a good deal when measured in quality years of life gained.

“We used in our baseline analysis a cost of $52 1998 dollars for six
pills per month,” Smith says. “You would need to spend $244 per month
– 20 pills — before Viagra would become cost-ineffective.” The results
were published in this month’s issue of the journal Annals of Internal
Medicine.

Such figures make Viagra more cost-effective than renal dialysis,
cholesterol-lowering medication, or heart bypass grafting, Smith says. He
admits, however, that unlike these other conditions, erectile dysfunction is
hardly life threatening. But he argues that insurance carriers pay for many
other illnesses — such as migraine headaches — that affect the quality but
not the length of a person’s life.

“It looks like when insurance companies were deciding whether to cover
Viagra, they probably didn’t use a cost-effectiveness analysis to make the
decision,” he says. “It would appear that their decisions have been
arbitrary.”

In an editorial, Michael R. McGarvey, MD, says Smith and colleagues did
their math the right way. But McGarvey, who is chief medical officer for
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, says they drew the wrong
conclusions about what this means for insurance coverage.

“My personal feeling is that we really need to re-examine the whole
issue of what we should be expecting health insurance to do for us,”
McGarvey tells WebMD. “It should be aimed at providing health services that
are of proven value for serious and expensive conditions. We should re-examine
the use of health insurance for cheapest generic viagra
that ‘enhance’ our
lives.”

McGarvey says that Americans expect their health insurance to provide more
benefits than ever before. These expectations are partly due to new
levitra vs cialis
, he says — and partly because people fortunate enough to be able
to afford health insurance are getting spoiled.

“I think because insurance has become so incredibly complicated, most
Americans are reasonably confused about the coverage they have and don’t
have,” he says. “The expectation is that it should cover whatever they
want, as often as they want it. Americans tend to have very high expectations
and are very unhappy when these expectations are thwarted in any way.”

McGarvey points out that there is a limit to what insurers can do. At
current rates, one in five Americans will be uninsured by the year 2008. The
question the nation must face, he says, is whether less extensive health
insurance should be given to more people, or more extensive health insurance
should be given to fewer people.

“We are confronting a national embarrassment which is the number of
people that are uninsured,” McGarvey says. “We know health insurance is
an important but erectile dysfunction new drug expensive component of our lives. We need to
think about it and exercise some judgement in making and adhering to some
difficult decisions. As you add more and more and more benefits, insurance will
become less and less affordable and people will drop out of the insurance pool.
And that is bad for a growing number of people.”

Smith agrees that McGarvey is raising important questions. “The points
that Dr. McGarvey makes are very good ones — and we are looking at two sides
of the same coin,” he says. “I don’t think that you can base insurance
coverage just on cost-effectiveness. There are other factors. But it should
certainly be a factor.”

Vital Information:

• New research shows that Viagra is cost-effective for improving quality of
  life, but there is still debate about whether health insurance should pay for
  this drug.
• One researcher argues that insurance companies pay for treatment of other
  illnesses, such as migraine headaches, that aren’t life threatening, so Viagra
  should be covered as well.
• Another expert argues that Americans who have health insurance expect too
  much, and that adding more benefits only increases costs, which increases the
  number of uninsured.

Oct. 10, 2003 — Move over Viagra. Men now have a choice when it comes to drug treatments for erectile cheap generic viagra, and it seems that the newest therapy may be the best option for some.

The newly approved drug Levitra was found to work in many men who did not respond to Viagra in a study funded by Levitra manufacturers Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline, a WebMD sponsor.

The men included in the new study were identified as Viagra viagra vs cialis
after failing to achieve successful erections while taking Viagra during at least four of their six most recent sexual attempts. Participants were randomized to receive either Levitra or placebo. After 12 weeks, men were three times more likely to complete sexual intercourse successfully on Levitra than on placebo. While more than 40% of men who took Levitra achieved an erection only 16% of men who took a placebo were able to do so.

The findings are the first to show that Levitra can help men with erectile dysfunction who are not helped by Viagra, says researcher Culley C. Carson, III, MD. Carson is scheduled present the finding Saturday in Denver at a meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America.

More Potent Than Viagra?

Levitra hit the market with a vengeance in August, acquiring close to 50% of the market share for newly treated patients within less than a month. Laboratory studies suggest that the new drug may be more potent than the older Viagra and may also have a better side effect profile, but no soft tablet viagra
clinical studies have been done to prove this.

“If you’re asking me which drug is better, there is no way I can answer,” says urologist Irwin Goldstein, MD, who is one of the nation’s leading impotence researchers.

Goldstein was not involved with the latest study, but had conducted research on Viagra, Levitra, and another erectile dysfunction drug that is expected to win FDA approval later this year, Eli Lilly’s Cialis.

He tells WebMD that while there is, as yet, no clearly superior drug among the three, patients will benefit from having more than one drug to choose from.

“As a clinician I really appreciate the fact that men now have choices,” he says. “Viagra has helped a lot of people. But just as there are plenty of men who have done well on it, there are plenty of others who have not responded.”

Good Sex

“One message here is that men who have failed Viagra should certainly try this drug,” urologist and study co-author Myron Murdoch, MD, tells WebMD. “But another message is that even men who are taking Viagra may see a benefit. They may think they are getting an optimal sexual response but they really don’t know, because they haven’t had anything to compare it with.”

Meanwhile experts say it is also important for men with erectile dysfunction — often an uso continuo tadalafil problem — to speak up.

“Now more than ever it is important for men with sexual problems to talk about them with their doctors,” he says. “We now have a choice in the tools we can use to help patients. There is no reason to suffer in silence.”

Cialis vs viagra

SOURCES: 5TH Annual Fall Research Meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA), Denver, Oct. 11, 2003. Culley C. Carson, III, MD, president, SMSNA; chief, urology department, University of North Carolina Hospitals, Chapel Hill, N.C. Irwin Goldstein, MD, professor, urology department, Boston University School of Medicine. Myron Murdoch, MD, urologist; consultant, Levitra manufacturer.