This year, a team of medical researchers from Harvard Medical School published a study in JAMA that demonstrated men who used Viagra (sildenafil) were more than twice as likely to suffer melanoma as men who never used the drug.
Here, we’ll discuss another article from Harvard University that raised concerns similar to those found in the above-mentioned scientific study on carcinogenic risks related to the erectile dysfunction drug.
Daniel Pendick, the executive editor of Harvard Men’s Health Watch, explains that while the JAMA study demonstrated the risk for melanoma is dramatically elevated with Viagra use, the absolute risk for melanoma remains small. For example, if the risk any man is diagnosed with melanoma is, say, 1 in 1,000, a doubling of the risk would make the chances a man is diagnosed 1 in 500 – but this is still a relatively low “absolute risk.”
This has no bearing on whether or not Viagra-melanoma lawsuits will be filed, or whether or not they should be filed. That depends on whether or not the manufacturer of Viagra, Pfizer Inc., knew of risks but failed to adequately inform patients. If the company knew and failed to act, lawsuits should be filed. It appears the company did know about the risk for melanoma linked to Viagra, and it looks like lawsuits are going to go through, which they should.
Mr. Pendick continues: “The findings of the JAMA Internal Medicine study need to be replicated in other groups of men before sounding any warning bells.” I agree. If you search PubMed (a huge database of medical literature curated by NIH and the National Library of Medicine) for “sildenafil melanoma” today, you’ll find about ten entries. Several of those entries are studies on the link between Viagra and melanoma, and the rest are comments by doctors or medical researchers on the studies.
By contrast, if you searched “ssri malformation” (SSRIs raise the risk for a number of birth defects when taken during pregnancy, particularly early pregnancy), you’ll get hundreds of results. Pendick is right – there is simply not enough research to conclude much about the risk for melanoma from Viagra. Again, though, I submit Pfizer is compelled to warn users of any risks reported, especially deadly ones.
“In the meantime,” writes Pendick, “Protect your skin from too much sun and have routine skin checks to identify melanoma and other types of skin cancer early, while they are still treatable.
That’s especially important for older men, who are at greater risk for developing melanoma and also at greater risk for dying from it. An estimated 76,000 Americans (more than half of them men) will be diagnosed with melanoma this year, and almost 10,000 will die from it.”
This is always good advice.
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