Whenever you watch television, you're likely to see ads promoting the use of Viagra (sildenafil) to overcome erectile dysfunction.
According to a recent report by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Viagra may have an entirely new, and unexpected, therapeutic role — the treatment of heart failure in both men and women.
Heart failure is not the same thing as a heart attack. It means that the heart muscle has become so weak that it can no longer pump as much blood as the body needs.
Elevated pressure in the pulmonary arteries (pulmonary hypertension) is found in about three out of four patients with systolic heart failure, the most common type of heart failure. And the presence of pulmonary hypertension (PH) reduces exercise capacity and increases mortality.
The Massachusetts General study randomly assigned 34 patients with systolic heart failure and PH to either a placebo or to 25- to 75-mg pills three times daily of Viagra, which had been shown in earlier studies to lower pressure in patients with PH.
Compared with the placebo group, those receiving Viagra had lower pulmonary pressure, improved exercise capacity while walking for six minutes, better quality of life, and fewer hospitalizations during a 12-week period. Viagra administration increased the incidence of headaches, but no other significant side effects were reported.
These results are consistent with previous studies, which showed that Viagra reduced adverse manifestations of heart failure in experimental animals and that a single dose of Viagra gave short-term improvement in exercise capacity in patients with heart failure.
Larger trials are needed to prove the safety and effectiveness of Viagra in this type of heart failure. If the results of such trials are also favorable, Viagra, as well as the other, similar drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction, may be widely applicable to treat heart failure, a disorder that affects an estimated 5 million Americans.