Perhaps most men are more afraid of erectile dysfunction than cancer, even though only the latter has the potential to kill them. But why not kill two birds with one stone? According to new research that was supported by the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK, some meds used for treating erectile dysfunction can also provide significant help with esophageal cancer, according to SciTechDaily.
To be more precise, those meds used for getting you back on track with the ladies can help in making the chemotherapy become more effective. It’s estimated that this year in the US, over 16,000 people will die because of esophageal cancer, as cancer.net reveals.
Relying on PDE5 inhibitors for getting rid of cancer?
PDE5 inhibitors are the drugs thought to have the potential of reversing chemotherapy resistance. PDE5 with chemo may do better at shrinking esophageal tumors than chemo alone.
Michelle Mitchell, who is chief executive of Cancer Research UK, stated as SciTechDaily quotes:
Developing new drugs for cancer is incredibly important, but doing so from scratch is a challenging process, and many fail along the way. We’ve also been keen to explore whether existing drugs, licensed for other diseases, can be effective in treating cancer. If these turn out to be successful treatments, they will also prove to be more affordable and become available to patients quicker.
Progress in treatment for esophageal cancer over the last 40 years has seen only limited improvement, which is why we’ve made it a research priority. We’re looking forward to seeing how the combined treatment of PDE5 inhibitors with chemotherapy performs in clinical trials.
You can also check out Dr. Ken Berry’s list of common causes of erectile dysfunction that can appear in a man’s life. The doctor also said that the condition can appear at any moment during the life of a man, but he suggests that people need to be especially concerned if it happens before the age of 50 or 60.
The new research was published in Cell Reports Medicine, and still, more studies are needed.
