Jury Still Out on Effectiveness of Viagra for Women

May 24, 2000 (San Francisco) — Don’t expect to see Elizabeth Dole in an ad
for Viagra. Once again, when the miracle drug was tested in women with sexual
dysfunction it failed the test proving, according to some critics, that what is
good for the gander will never fly in the goose.

Nonetheless, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the drug, is not throwing
in the towel. Pfizer tells WebMD that it is forging ahead with a new study that
will test the drug in postmenopausal women on hormone replacement therapy whose
main complaint is the inability to become sexually aroused.

Michael T. Sweeney, MD, medical director of the Viagra team at Pfizer, tells
WebMD that the new study is recruiting 150 women who will either receive a
sugar pill or one of three Viagra doses: 10 mg, 50 mg, or 100 mg.

But Viagra has had some success among women, because if the mass media is
any indication, sexual dysfunction in women is news and much of the credit for
that goes to Viagra, the drug that made it possible to take sexual dysfunction
public. With the remarkable success of Viagra for men with impotence,
researchers hoped that the drug could do the same for women.

But once again, gender makes a difference, says Rosemary Basson, MBBS, MRCP.
Basson was lead researcher of a Canadian and European study of almost 600 women
with sexual dysfunction disorders.

In this latest study, released at a meeting of obstetricians and
gynecologists here this week, the placebo performed better than Viagra
regardless of the dose. Additionally, more than a third of women taking higher
doses of Viagra — 50 mg and 100 mg — reported side effects, such as headache
and flushing. Basson says that “is much higher than the rate in men, which
is only about 14% or 15%.” She is associate professor in both obstetrics
and psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver
Hospital.

Basson, who says she has been treating sexual dysfunction in women for
decades, says it is difficult to determine if Viagra will ever have a
therapeutic role for women. “Among women, sexual dysfunction is not so
easily divided into different areas as it is with men. In women, it is more of
a continuum in which women may have low desire, female sexual arousal disorder,
or female orgasmic disorder. It is not such a simple thing as blood
supply,” she says.

Picking up that theme, Winnifred Cutler, PhD, president of the Athena
Institute for Women’s Wellness Inc. in Chester Springs, Penn., says sexual
response in women is actually even more complicated than a mixing of the
emotional and physical.

In another presentation at the same meeting, Cutler presented findings that
also suggest hysterectomy may have a negative impact on sexual response in
women. Researchers looked at women who had hysterectomies, women who had not
had hysterectomies, and women who were diagnosed as having fibroid tumors in
the uterus, a common condition. A majority of women in all three groups report
a high rate of sexual satisfaction, she says.

However, says Cutler, more than half of the women “report frequent
orgasm,” but frequency of orgasm declines when a hysterectomy is scheduled.
She says other studies have noted lower levels of orgasm at the time
hysterectomy is scheduled and higher levels at two years after surgery. Those
studies claim, she says, that hysterectomy improves sexual function and
satisfaction.

“Our data suggest that sexual satisfaction is suppressed at the time a
hysterectomy is scheduled,” she says. “The claim that hysterectomy
improves a woman’s sex life is wrong.”

Basson says that Cutler’s theory is interesting, but has some skepticism.
“I think if this were true, I would be getting great numbers of
posthysterectomy referrals,” she says. “That is not the case. I am not
treating great numbers of women who say that hysterectomy made them sexually
dysfunctional.”

Vital Information:

• Viagra has suffered some recent setbacks in studies testing the drug in
  women who have sexual dysfunction.
• A therapist who works with female patients with sexual dysfunction says
  unlike men, women’s conditions don’t focus on blood flow, but rather, are
  affected by multiple factors.
• Another factor that can contribute to a woman’s sexual dissatisfaction is a
  plan for hysterectomy. While studies have found those who have had this surgery
  often have a satisfying sex life, intimacy often suffers during the time the
  procedure is planned, but gradually recovers.

Originaly from Source