Drugs routinely used to treat erectile dysfunction could boost survival rates in people with certain cancers by making their treatment more effective.
Researchers in the UK have found that drugs called phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, which include Viagra, 비아그라 효과 can potentially improve how well patients with esophageal cancer respond to chemotherapy.
The hope is it could ultimately help treat other cancers, too.
In the US, there are about 21,600 new esophageal cancer cases diagnosed every year.In the UK there are around 9,300 new diagnoses.
The cancer also has one of the lowest survival rates — just 19 per cent of patients survive for five years or more.
By contrast, 85 per cent of breast cancer patients survive their disease for five years or more, according to Cancer Research UK.
Little blue pill is magic, after all!Viagra was found to kill off cancerous cells and boost the effects of chemotherapy in lab and mice studies
‘Esophageal cancer is hard to treat because around 80 per cent of people don’t respond to chemotherapy,’ says Tim Underwood, a professor of gastrointestinal surgery at Southampton University, who led the new research.
The new study, published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, suggests that PDE5 inhibitors could improve patient outcomes.