Patch May Be Magic Pill For Women
(CBS) While drugs for male sexual like Viagra, Levitra and Cialis flood the market, for the 40 percent of American women with sexual problems, there’s been no magic pill. But, as CBS News Medical Elizabeth Kaledin reports, that’s about to change.
“Women’s sexual health is coming into its own because of more emphasis on women’s health,” says Dr. James Simon. “The baby boomers are demanding more attention.”
Simon is overseeing studies of a new testosterone patch designed to help women like Roslyn Washington who lost all interest in sex after a hysterectomy in 1995.
She says she was feeling “absolutely nothing. I mean, I really had no desire to have sex.”
She was only 41 and knew it wasn’t in her head, so she signed up for the clinical trial.
“It was a very unobtrusive type of patch,” she says. “Just like a nicotine patch very, very thin, clear plastic.”
Results of the trial announced Tuesday show that 74 percent of women trying the patch said their interest in sex returned.
“I felt sexual, I felt great,” says Washington.
Low testosterone is a common thread linking cases of female sexual dysfunction.
Many women, like Lillian Arleque, who lost interest in sex after childbirth, use a testosterone gel that she rubs on the back of her leg every day.
“I started to notice a difference after six weeks,” says Arleque.
But, it’s not so simple as just hormones.
“Women are complicated,” says Simon.
It turns out the brain may play the leading role in the female sexual response.
Neuroscientist Annette Shadiak is testing a new drug called PT141: a nasal spray that sends a synthetic hormone directly into the arousal center of the brain.
“All you have to do is just remove the cap and push the plunger and it delivers the dose,” she says.
So far, the spray has only been tested in female rats, which seem to like it a lot.
So the theory, Shadiak says, is that the drug the rats’ version of desire.
Critics, like sex therapist Leonore Tiefer, are wary and say it’s a myth that medicine can cure sexual problems, some of which could be marital or emotional.
“Women have many kinds of sexual problems, most of which will not be affected one whit by drugs, pills, patches, creams or sprays,” says Tiefer. “They won’t be benefited.
“It will just be money down the drain.”
Washington doesn’t care. She says she speaks for millions of women when she offers this advice for drug companies:
“Put it on the market. Get it out there.”
Since the time of this broadcast, CBS News has learned PT 141 has been tested in a Phase 1 clinical trial on 32 women and hopes to have further on a Phase 2 clinical trial with women possibly by September.
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