The top selling blue "magic" pill Viagra, that has helped men renew their sex lives, may soon be used for the treatment of stroke.
Doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, are studying to find if the drug Viagra can help patients recover from a stroke.
According to the researchers, animal tests have shown that the drug used for sexual performance can improve memory and movement by helping injured brains develop new cells and blood vessels.
The study, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, aims to help individuals regain or improve motor and speech skills as well as cognitive thinking.
The major focus will be on Viagra's effect on people who have suffered ischemic strokes, which are caused by blocked arteries.
Nearly 90 per cent of the 700,000 strokes that occur yearly in the United States are ischemic, and they often cause long-term disability and death.
The Ford Hospital study is a so-called phase one study, the earliest stage of research, to determine whether Viagra
is safe. The study will enroll 84 patients ages 18 to 80 with mild-to-moderate complications in the first three days of a stroke over the next three months.
So far, this hospital has used Viagra for two patients for neurological recovery, both under a compassionate use basis.
One patient, Rene Jarinski, 43, has been treated with Viagra since suffering a stroke in July 2003. She was diagnosed with locked in syndrome, a very uncommon condition, in which she could only move her eyes up down.
"To my knowledge she is the first patient in the United States who has been treated with Viagra specifically for stroke recovery," says Dr Brian Silver, principal investigator and a neurologist at Henry Ford Hospital.
"We're not certain that Viagra is helping the recovery, but she is now able to smile, eat, move all four limbs and stand up with assistance," says Silver.
After being given doses of 50 and 100 milligrams earlier, she now takes 150 milligrams daily.
"Things moved slowly in the first couple of months; most of the recovery has come after the sixth month period. This is
very uncommon for individuals after stroke who typically see a deceleration in recovery. Individuals with locked in syndrome rarely walk or talk again. Rene is making a recovery that doesn't follow the normal recovery curve."
For a number of years Ford hospital has been researching stroke recovery using Viagra in laboratory animals with good outcomes.
In this case what had been learned in the lab would be transferred to the bedside.
"What we found is that we can use certain drugs like Viagra to create new brain cells," says Michael Chopp, scientific director of the Neuroscience Institute at Henry Ford Hospital.
"When mice and rats with stroke are treated with Viagra, the drug provides very significant functional benefit. These
animals do much better. There are far fewer functional deficits."
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