New Stent Aims to Help Erectile Dysfunction Patients

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We are all used to getting spam e-mails offering discounts on medications such as Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra, but if the new clinical trial is successful, men that suffer from erectile dysfunction may one day be flooded with e-mails for something other than a magic pill: a pelvic stent.

Medtronic has begun testing on a pelvic stent for the men who have not been helped out by the the "little blue pill" and other prescription medications. The researchers will begin with 50 patients from 10 different medical centers. 

Dr. Krishna Rocha-Singh, who is the director of the Prairie Vascular Institute in Springfield, Illinois and installed the stent in the first patient last week said, “This is a common problem. Men many times do not have satisfactory results from first-line medical therapies.” Singh also stated that erectile dysfunction can also be a sign of a larger problem, with potential blockages of some major blood vessels.

Singh said that erectile dysfunction could be a symptom of a vascular source, which means it could be an early sign of what could lead to a stroke or heart attack. “The patients we’re treating in our practice [with erectile dysfunction] had the same problem elsewhere in other parts of the body.” The stent might help solve some of those problems by opening up the blood flow. However, it still remains to be seen which patients using the stent, a question everyone hopes the clinical trial will answer, would actually be help out.

Another question being asked is whether the stents are best used in younger men? Dr. Jerome Richie, who is the chief of urology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said, “I would foresee this stent as an application for younger individuals who have had traumatic injuries that decrease arterial inflow. Other than that selected group, I do not foresee widespread applicability.”

Dr. Ajay Nehra, who is a professor urology at the Mayo Clinic, also agreed that younger men whose erectile dysfunction stemmed from a traumatic injury would be the mostly likely candidates to be helped, and said that they may even prefer a stenting operation to taking a pill, since an erection would not feel as medically induced. Nehra said, “Men would ideally like to have natural, spontaneous erection, and that’s why the medical device is trying to look at alternative options than pills, per se.”

So will there be a demand for this surgical stent procedure? Current erectile dysfunction drugs work in only half of patients, so for this very reason, a number of doctors believe that the stent could become a commercial success. If women are willing to have plastic surgery to get breast implants, and men are willing to get penile implants, then the potential for the stent could be huge, if it is shown to work and has minimal side effects.

Dr. Ira Sharlip, who is a clinical professor of urology at the University of California at San Francisco, said, “All men with erectile dysfunction will want to know if they are candidates for the stent.” However, at the same time, he stated that it still remains to be seen if the stent really works and for whom.