New system may improve impotence treatment

Dr.Joe's Data Base

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Aug. 09, 1995

A new treatment for impotence has been successful in more than 70 percent
of men tested -- and does not require shots, surgery or pumps.

Instead, it uses a device called the Medicated Urethral System for Erection
(MUSE) -- a small plunger, about one-eighth-inch diameter at the tip, that
is briefly inserted into the urethral opening, where it releases a pellet
of erection-inducing medication that is absorbed into the mucous membranes.

Typically men with erectile dysfunction self-inject the penis with
muscle-relaxing drugs, which dilate the blood vessels. That method,
however, sometimes results in a prolonged and painful erection, impotency
experts say.

"The new system is a real breakthrough," said Dr. Culley Carson III, a
urologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel
Hill. "It's going to improve the ability of men to use medication to
restore their erections in a way that we haven't been able to accomplish
before."

In most cases, erectile dysfunction is thought to be caused by physical
problems like diabetes, excess alcohol consumption, smoking, multiple
sclerosis or the side effects from prescription drugs.

In a study of 234 men who had not achieved an erection for an average of
four years, 76 percent of the men achieved an erection after the MUSE
treatment. Less than 3 percent of men who were treated with a placebo
experienced the same effect.

Researchers say injecting erection-producing drugs is generally more
effective, but that the MUSE treatment will probably prove more attractive
to many men.

"Given the choice, most people would use a little pellet at the end of the
urethra rather than injecting medicine," said Robert Krane of the
University of Southern California School of Medicine.

The device, manufactured by Vivus Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif., is expected
to be on the market by 1997.

Compiled from staff and wire reports.
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Copyright 1995 San Diego Union-Tribune