Doctors are prescribing Viagra to a small number of children with a fatal, lung-heart condition. The drug, normally associated with middle-aged male impotency, enables children with pulmonary arterial hypertension to breathe more easily by expanding blood vessels in the heart and lungs.
About 4,000 Britons suffer from the incurable condition, including 320 children, and doctors have started controlled trials of the drug.
In a year-long Canadian study, Viagra was given four times a day to 14 children with the condition. The average dose was 40mg, double that taken by impotent men.
Before treatment, the children could walk an average of 324 metres in six minutes. After one year of treatment, they could walk a further 154 metres in the same time and blood flow increased by 20 per cent. Patients were given a 37 per cent chance of surviving a year, but at the end of the trial all 14 were still alive.
Iain Armstrong, the chairman for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, said: "Physicians discovered that the receptors in the lungs are similar to the receptors in the penis. So they thought if it [Viagra] can work for erectile dysfunction it should work for pulmonary hypertension. The results are encouraging."
Dr Joanna Pepke-Zaba, the director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Unit at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire, said: "We have tracked adverse reactions such as the possibility of boys having erections and being put in an embarrassing situation. It has only happened once in a boy, but cannot definitely be put down to Viagra."
Fran Georgel, 43, from Buckingham, Kent, whose nine-year-old son Robbie has been taking a drug similar to Viagra for five years, said "Once Viagra is confirmed safe, it should definitely be licensed."
Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra, intends to seek a licence for the drug as a treatment for pulmonary hypertension when the trials are complete.
