Men enrolled in an innovative program to treat impotence are getting a real charge out of their sex life.
The therapy the 20 volunteers are receiving involves firing shock waves into the body, according to the London Daily Mail, using a technique originally developed to treat kidney stones. So far, the therapy, on trial in Israel, is working so well that 15 of the men were able to throw away the pills they’d been taking for erectile dysfunction, the paper reports.
The treatment uses a mild form of lithotripsy, a technique that has been used for more than 20 years to treat kidney stones. The sound waves can smash up kidney stones or they can stimulate the growth of new blood cells in the genital region. Several recent studies have demonstrated that this form of shock-wave therapy has a beneficial effect on blood vessels.
The 20 men in the Israeli study have an average age of 56. They were recruited by doctors at the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa, Israel, and all 20 were on medication and had endured erection problems for an average of three years. Over the course of three weeks, low-intensity shock waves were fired into five points in the genital area.
About 50% of men over the age of 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction, says Dr. Andrew McCullough, director of male sexual health, fertility and microsurgery in the department of urology at NYU Langone Medical Center.
He calls the shock-wave study in Israel “absolutely experimental” at this point.
“There is a real charge associated with this treatment,” McCullough says. “When people are treated this way for kidney stones, they are under sedation. Also, it is kind of hard to focus the beam where you want it. There are other organs in this region, too, such as the prostate gland and testicles.”
And, McCullough points out, there’s about a 40% placebo response rate for all treatments of erectile dysfunction.
He says much more study is needed before the treatment would ever be available here.
Dr. Yoram Vardi, who led the trial in Israel, told the Daily Mail: “Drugs are not a cure. When patients stop taking their medication, then they cannot function. With shock waves, we can do something biological for the problem. These patients can then function without the need for medication.”
And Dr. John Dean, president of the International Society of Sexual Medicine, told the Daily Mail that the findings were “intriguing.”
“These findings are interesting and definitely warrant further investigation,” Dean said. “But we are a long way off saying that men should go to their GP asking for this treatment.”
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The Source: NY Daily News
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