Pulmonary Hypertension

Viagra may be famous for helping men in the bedroom, but a new study shows it may also help children with a rare and often fatal lung disease.Researchers found the active ingredient in Viagra, sildenafil, helped children with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) walk farther and breathe easier when taken over the course of a year.Pulmonary arterial hypertension occurs when blood pressure in the arteries that supply blood to the lungs becomes dangerously high and causes symptoms including fatigue, dizziness, shortness of breath, and eventually heart failure and death."Untreated, children usually die within one year of diagnosis," says researcher Ian Adatia, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco Children's Hospital, in a news release. He says that even with the best available treatment few people live five years after the disease is diagnosed.But the small, pilot study showed that sildenafil provided significant benefits for children with the lu...

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