Viagra may restore erections after prostate surgery

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.