Anti-impotence drugs can help treat brain tumors

Anti-impotence drugs such as Viagra and Levitra can help put cancer treatment drugs into the brain to kill malignant tumors, US scientists claim.

A team of experts from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, USA, experimented with mice with brain tumors. They use Levitra and Viagra, two drugs for treating erectile dysfunction in men, to see if they can put a chemotherapy drug inside the tumor.

The mice lived 42 days when they were injected with Adriamycin, a cancer treatment drug. But if both Levitra and Adriamycin were given, their average survival time increased to 53 days. According to researchers, Levitra is more effective than Viagra in leading anti-cancer drugs to the brain.

'We chose Adriamycin because it is one of the most effective brain cancer drugs in laboratory tests. But on human and animal bodies, Adriamycin proved to be ineffective because it could not overcome the barrier in blood vessels , 'said Dr. Keith Black, lead researcher.

According to Keith Black, barriers are a cellular level mechanism that prevents harmful agents from entering the brain. Brain tumors are fed by some small blood vessels and these blood vessels also have a barrier. The doctor said the drugs for impotence appear to have a great effect on small blood vessels. This finding could help doctors use chemicals to kill brain tumors without damaging healthy brain tissue.