Priapism Treatment Breakthrough

not only painful but will cause permanent penile damage over time

Interesting new research undertaken by the University of Texas Health Science Center based in Houston, USA has come up with a treatment which could help the thousands of men every year who suffer from the extremely painful and embarrassing health condition called Priapism.
Priapism is when men get completely spontaneous and long lasting erections in the absence of any sexual stimuli and which just won’t go away. These unwanted erections are not only painful but will cause permanent penile damage over time and should be treated as soon as possible. Priapism is often linked to blood diseases such as sickle cell disease and leukemia as well as the abuse of vasoactive drugs.

Until recently the only immediate cure was to go to hospital and have an injection to physically remove the blood from the chambers in the penis that are the cause of the erection, but now a team of scientists say that with the use of a drug which already has FDA approval it is possible to relieve the symptoms of Priapism using polyethylene glycol-linked adenosine deaminase (PEG-ADA). Normally this drug is used to treat patients who suffer from a deficiency of the adenosine deaminase enzyme which causes a condition known as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID) or the Bubble Boy Disease.

The new study led by Professor Yang Xia was done using mice and should provide new hope for men who suffer from Priapism which often ends up causing permanent penile damage and thus erectile dysfunction, which cannot be treated normally with the erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis or Levitra. It is hoped that a proper clinical study using men will commence soon so that its effectiveness and safety can be properly gauged and thus it can be freely prescribed in hospitals around the world for Priapism too.

The research was published in the online version of The FASEB Journal.