Female Libido Treatment

One very common complaint nearly all primary care physicians receive is from middle age and older females about their loss of libido and enjoyment is sex. They always want to know when ‘Viagra for women” will be available.

Many physicians use testosterone in some women for this problem but it is not yet FDA approved. Procter & Gamble Co. has worked since 1999 to secure U.S. approval for its Intrinsa patch which is intended to increase sex drive and satisfaction in women after menopause.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a company-run study of the patch, which delivers a steady stream of testosterone, a hormone associated with sex drive in men and women.

Intrinsa is already on sale in Europe to treat "hypoactive sexual desire disorder," meaning a lack of interest in sexual activity that leads to unhappiness.

Surveys have shown that between 10% and 30% of post-menopausal women typically report low sexual desire but many in the medical field doubt whether the condition should be considered a medical disorder. I cannot say there is no gender bias in this statement.

Women in the study, who averaged 54 years old, were asked to keep a weekly diary of sexual episodes and note which ones they considered "satisfying." About 264 women wore Intrinsa patches, to be placed near the belly button and changed twice a week, and 277 wore fake patches.

All the women started out with low sexual desire, and reported an average of 2.5 "satisfying sexual episodes" over the previous four weeks. After six months, women wearing Intrinsa reported 4.6 satisfying episodes in the previous four weeks, compared with 3.2 in a group wearing a fake patch.

The results of this study are unlikely to allay concerns about the safety of long-term treatment with hormones such as testosterone and therefore will not likely get FDA approval for a while.

The concern is that three of 264 women with the patch developed breast cancer, compared with none on the placebo patch and in a third group using a low-dose version of the patch, one women developed breast cancer.

Other studies including a 2002 U.S. government study found that hormone-replacement therapy, widely used to treat the symptoms of menopause, increased breast cancer and cardiovascular problems.

The FDA told manufacturers it will require a large "safety" study, likely with several thousand patients, before approving testosterone products to increase women's sex drives and P&G declined to say specifically whether it planned to seek approval again from the FDA.

Vivus Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., pharmaceutical company, also stated they weren’t any closer to introducing its female sexual-satisfaction drug, known as Luramist.
Estimates are that no drug will hit the market until at least 2012 to treat this problem.

Sorry ladies……..and guys