New oral drugs for erectile dysfunction

In 1998, we concluded that sildenafil (Viagra--fizer Ltd), a selective phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor, appeared to offer advantages over other medical approaches for erectile dysfunction in terms of ease of administration and cost. Oral drug treatment is now widely advocated as first-line therapy for erectile dysfunction, except where the cause is clearly psychological. In the past 4 years, three more oral preparations have been licensed in the UK for the treatment of men with erectile dysfunction. A sublingual preparation of the dopaminergic agonist apomorphine (Uprima--Abbott Laboratories Ltd) is the first centrally acting drug to be licensed. Tadalafil (Cialis--Eli-Lilly) and vardenafil (Levitra--Bayer PLC) are phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors. Here we review the place of these preparations for men with erectile dysfunction.