Medtronic's Passion Play - penile stents?

[question everything]

Medtronic's Passion Play
Matthew Herper, 10.14.09
Forbes

Medical device maker to test stent as alternative to Viagra.

Medtronic put out one of those press releases Monday that seem designed to pique press attention: The company is starting a 50-person pilot study to see if a drug-coated stent, similar to those used in heart procedures, can treat erectile dysfunction.

Erectile dysfunction treatments loom large in the popular mind. Even though Viagra and Cialis are not even close to being the top sellers for makers Pfizer and Eli Lilly, they are almost certainly the companies' most well-known products. The initial publicity over Viagra in 1998 was so intense that anybody who was watching TV then probably remembers former presidential candidate Bob Dole discussing the medicine's merits. The logic behind the Medtronic experiment is that half of men who receive Viagra, Cialis or Levitra, made by Bayer, don't get the expected benefit. The drugs work by opening up arteries throughout the body, which allows the penis to fill with blood. But in cases where the arteries don't open enough, the logic goes, why not open them mechanically?

Here's what the researchers plan to do: A catheter would be inserted through the groin, just as with a heart procedure. But instead of being threaded into the heart, it would be snaked into the pudendal artery, which feeds blood to the genitals. Then dye would be injected, and an X-ray would be taken. If the pudendal artery was the main reason the man is having trouble getting an erection, then a stent would be inserted to prop the artery open.

About 20 million American men are thought to suffer from some level of erectile dysfunction. What's not known now is how many have problems because of blockages in a pudendal artery. The problem could be in the smaller blood vessels that lead from the pudendal artery to the penis. Or it could be unrelated to blood vessels--as with the nerve damage that can cause impotence following prostate cancer surgery.

(snip)

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/14/medtronic-erectile-dysfunction-business-healthcare-viagra.html

[Chemisse]

1. Interesting - I wonder if insurance would pay for it though

I know some men have ill effects from Viagra and its relatives.