Could cystitis symptoms be eased by anti-impotence drug Viagra?

Cystitis treatment usually comes in the form of antibiotics such as Trimethoprim, but the urinary infection could soon have an unlikely type of treatment – male erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.
Also going by the name of lower urinary tract infection, cystitis happens as a result of the lining of the bladder becoming inflamed, causing a stinging/painful sensation upon urination, or an urgent need to urinate often.

Women have a short urethra compared to men, meaning cystitis is more common in females and nearly all women will suffer from cystitis at on at least one occasion in their lifetime. The high-risk groups are: pregnant women, sexually active women and post-menopausal women.
However, the findings of new research suggests that Pfizer’s popular anti-impotence drug Viagra may help to ease the symptoms for those women that have interstitial cystitis, a more severe type of the bladder infection.

In the new study – published in the journal Urology – those women administered with just 25mg of the drug (50mg is a common dose for impotence) on a daily basis for three months had a significant clear-up of their symptoms, whereas the placebo group did not.

Antibiotics can usually help to clear the condition up, but women that get interstitial cystitis are not as fortunate as the drugs do not respond to it, and the condition may even evolve into painful long-term problem that is not easily treatable. There are thought to be 400,000 people in the UK with interstitial cystitis and around 90% of these people are women.

It is not fully clear the specific causes for the onset of interstitial cystitis, but many health experts believe it could be linked be due to a defect of the bladder lining or an autoimmune disorder, be caused because of other inflammation problems, or an inherited increase in the risk of developing it.
Studies conducted previously and involving animals, seemed to show that Viagra was helping ease symptoms.

Therefore, doctors at the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University in Zhejiang, China, wanted to see if the same held true for humans, managing to recruit 48 women for the study, with interstitial cystitis, segregating them into two groups.

Each day for 12 weeks one group were told to take a 25mg Viagra tablet, whilst the other group were given a placebo. Doctors analysed symptoms according to an index, which documented the frequency the women needed to urinate and how painful it was.

Almost two-thirds of the women given Viagra reported improvements in their symptoms, having to get up on less occasions during the night to urinate and less pain, compared to those taking the placebo.

Those involved in the study are not completely certain how Viagra is benefiting the women, but think it could be working to relax the muscles in the bladder by boosting blood flow to the area, thereby relieving pressure  from the bladder and lessening the need to urinate so often.

Dr Robyn Webber, consultant urologist at the Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline, Scotland, commented on the study, saying: “Interstitial cystitis is a very distressing condition and the results of this trial do suggest that for some patients the drug may be a possible new treatment. But the number of patients involved was small and the findings need to be reproduced with bigger numbers. If the results do hold up, it could potentially offer hope to some patients.”