Viagra on Children: It May Work
Some hope for children with pulmonar hypertension

A recent study has suggested that the erectile dysfunction pill, namely Viagra, might help children who suffer from a fatal and rare lung disease called pulmonary hypertension, to breathe easier or walk farther after taking it.

Although researchers agree that using the Viagra pill in order to treat these very ill children requires more studies, they also agree that these early results are quite promising.

The lead study author, Dr. Ian Adatia, thinks that this finding is important, but still an awful amount of further work needs to be done in order to consider Viagra as a treatment. Dr. Ian Adatia is an associate professor of pediatrics, who works at the San Francisco Children's Hospital (University of California).

On the other hand, the F.D.A. approved some months ago the use if the active ingredient found in Viagra to help adults who suffer from pulmonary hypertension.

Actually there is no cure for the disease. It causes constant elevated blood pressure in the artery which conducts blood from the heart into the small lung vessels. Since these vessels get narrower, there remains less room for the blood to flow normally. The heart then is not capable of maintaining the high pressure, and the ill person suffers from shortness of breath, fatigue and, eventually, heart attack, stroke and death.

If the disease is not treated correctly, the child dies within a year. However, although treatments is given, only a few children are able to survive past five years after the diagnosis was made.

Pfizer, the developer of Viagra, funded the study, which was published online by the American Heart Association journal.