Viagra: Study says blue pill could beat certain cancers, make chemotherapy more effective

You will find it pretty amusing that Viagra now has another use that will help establish its identity beyond that as a drug for treating erectile dysfunction or lacklustre sexual arousal.

At the turn of the last century and millennium, Viagra arrived as the official prescription drug for erectile dysfunction - at once giving recognition to ED as a medication condition - a status denied to it until that time. The curious and lucky part of the discovery of Viagra was that the active ingredient in the drug, sildenafil, was being developed and tested for cardiovascular problems - which it failed during clinical trials. As luck would have it - just when the big pharma Pfizer considered abandoning the project, a nurse overseeing the clinical trial noticed that two of the male participants were embarrassed that they were getting erections. The trial was for a heart ailment drug and instead, the blood vessels were dilating in the penis. All hail Viagra, the star of the pharma industry is born.

Viagra seems to be a gift that just keeps giving - despite its many pros and cons. Now scientists have recently discovered that using drugs used in viagra could make chemotherapy more effective in patients with cancer, reports Express.co.uk.

Oesophageal cancer causes difficulty swallowing and indigestion. Though it is treatable, it can be difficult to reverse due to its fast-spreading nature. Scientists recently discovered, however, that using drugs used in viagra could make chemotherapy more effective in patients with cancer.

In the latest discovery - it is learnt that a group of drugs called phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, such as Viagra - is able to break through a barrier of cells that sit around tumours and prevent drugs from reaching them.

Professor Underwood, who is also a professor of gastrointestinal surgery at the University of Southampton told Express.co.uk, “The chemotherapy resistant properties of oesophageal tumours means that many patients undergo intensive chemotherapy that won’t work for them.”

The results seem to be encouraging and without the fear of adverse side effects. The method and treatment protocol was applied to mice with chemotherapy-resistant oesophageal tumours and found to be effective. In fact, when combined with PDE5, they discovered that chemotherapy shrunk the tumour more than chemotherapy did when it acted alone.

“Finding a drug, which is already sadly prescribed to people every day, could be a great step forward in tackling this hard-to-treat disease,” added Professor Underwood.

PDE5 are found in particularly high numbers in oesophageal cancers compared with other healthy oesophageal tissue.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, is enthused about the fact that Viagra is an existing drug with known features -- this discovery saves the pharma research industry the pain to launch research in cancer research from scratch with no guarantees of success.

“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.”