Medical Notes

In a recent experiment, Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug has emerged as a potential life saver for infants lying in pediatric intensive care units (ICU) under the influence of rebound pulmonary hypertension. Results derived from the Viagra testing on the rebound pulmonary hypertension afflicted babies who were deviating from the inhaled nitric oxide therapy proved the effectiveness of Viagra in reducing the complication to a significant degree.

In the experiment conducted at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne , Dr. Lara Shekerdemian along with a team of doctors selected 15 babies suffering from congenital heart diseases and administered them with single Viagra dosages. In conjunction with treating these 15 babies with Viagra dosages, a parallel placebo treatment was also conducted on 14 infants who were also suffering from the same disorder and were weaned from the nitric oxide therapy.

Astonishingly, all the Viagra treated patients got cured of rebound pulmonary hypertension while the disease remained in the 10 placebo treated babies. But after a gap of 24 hours, the infants on whom the placebo treatment failed were given Viagra dosage to successfully wean them from the nitric oxide therapy. As the testing came to an end, it also became clear that the patients who were cured through Viagra spent only 28 hours in the mechanical ventilator and had also passed lesser time in the ICU in comparison to the babies receiving placebo treatment that had to spend a total of 98 hours in the mechanical ventilator along with having a longer stay at the ICU.

The outcome of the experiments appeared in the November edition of American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine .

Source: forbes.com