Sildenafil's Effect Not Enhanced with Testosterone

Adding testosterone therapy to sildenafil is not more effective in treating erectile dysfunction (ED) than sildenafil alone, data show.

In a double-blind study that included 140 men prescribed sildenafil for ED, Matthew Spitzer, MD, of Boston University, and collaborators randomly assigned 70 subjects to 14 weeks of daily transdermal testosterone gel and 70 to receive placebo. Ten patients in the testosterone group and 12 in the placebo group did not complete the study.

At baseline, the two study arms had similar scores on the erectile function domain (EFD) of the International Index of Erectile Function. Sildenafil alone was associated with a substantial increase in EFD score, but change in EFD score after randomization did not differ between the groups, the investigators reported in Annals of Internal Medicine (2012;157:681-691).