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 Like popular medications for erectile dysfunction, low-intensity
shock wave treatment focuses on the main cause of the problem, which
is insufficient blood flow to the penis that makes it difficult to
get and maintain an erection. Unlike these pills, however shock wave
therapy isn’t approved to treat erectile dysfunction in the U.S.
While the long-term risks and benefits of shock treatment are still
unknown, and more studies are needed to determine the best dosage,
the therapy may offer an alternative to men who can’t take Viagra or
didn’t get the results they wanted from a pill, said senior study
author Dr. Tom Lue of the University of California, San Francisco.
“Basic research and clinical trials suggest that low-energy shock
wave therapy can improve penile blood circulation and thus may be
helpful in men with erectile dysfunction secondary to penile
vascular insufficiency,” Lue said by email.
Shock wave therapy is still an experimental treatment for erectile
dysfunction, and most of the studies to date have been done in small
animals that have similar but not identical mechanisms for
erections, noted Dr. Joao Paulo Zambon, a urology researcher at Wake
Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who wasn’t
involved in the research review.
“Potentially, it can restore the erectile function, but the exact
mechanism is still unclear,” Zambon said by email.
Researchers examined data from 14 previously published studies
including 833 patients from 2005 to 2015. The studies relied on men
to report whether they experienced an improvement in sexual
function, and they had a variety of experimental designs, doses of
shock therapy and treatment durations.
Half of the studies had participants randomly assigned to receive
shock therapy, though some results in this subset of trials may not
be reliable because patients and doctors knew whether participants
were given shock therapy or not.
Some individual studies didn’t show that low-intensity shock therapy
improved erectile function, researchers report in European Urology.
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A pooled analysis of results from just the studies that randomly
assigned patients to receive the treatment did suggest it could
significantly improve sexual function. On average, erectile function
was twice as good after this intervention than it was before.
Most of the men in these studies had erectile dysfunction due to
impaired blood flow to the penis, and not because of other health
problems like neurological or psychological issues that can also
impact sexual performance.
These results suggest that the therapy may not be a panacea for
every man experiencing sexual difficulties, said Dr. Noam Kitrey, a
sexual health and urology researcher at Sheba Medical Center in Tel-Hashomer,
Israel.
It may only be a good choice for men with erectile dysfunction
caused by vascular problems, Kitrey, who wasn’t involved in the
study, added by email.
“There is no scientific evidence to support shock wave therapy for
patients with other causes of erectile dysfunction – neurological
problems, psychological erectile dysfunction, or patients after
major pelvic surgery such as a radical prostatectomy or pelvic
irradiation,” Kitrey said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/29cXww3 European Urology, online June 16,
2016.
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