There may now be hope for patients who are suffering with a failing right heart ventricle.  University of Alberta researchers results indicate that Viagra can improve its performance, which is a breakthrough were there was previously no treatment. 

"There are a number of medical conditions in both children and adults for which there is a need to boost the performance of the right ventricle, and this drug can be clinically and immediately relevant to help these patients," said Dr. Jayan Nagendran, a cardiac surgery resident at the University of Alberta and the first author of the paper.

"Sometimes the right ventricle can fail rapidly and even result in death, like in lung transplant surgery, for example. In such a case, Viagra may increase the right ventricle's performance and save the patient." Nagendran added.

"We have a number of drugs and therapies available to treat the left ventricle of the heart to prevent it from failing or to treat it after it has failed, but we don't have anything for the right ventricle. The phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors, which include Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, may offer some important benefits in this case," said Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a University of Alberta cardiologist, the Canada Research Chair in Pulmonary Hypertension and the senior author of the paper.

Products such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra can help in cases of pulmonary hypertension by causing arteries to relax, letting blood flow more easily and reducing the strain on the right ventricle.  The same effect allows blood flow to the penis enabling erection.

Previous work by Dr Michelakis resulted in the use of Revatio (another brand name for Viagra) for pulmonary hypertension.  Researchers have shown that while it has no effect on normal hearts it has proven useful in treatment of thickened right ventricles without affecting the left ventricle.

"This selectivity is important and has direct clinical implications.  Relaxing the lung arteries alone may not be sufficient to help the patient, if the right ventricle is too weak to push blood through them. A drug such as Viagra, with a combined beneficial effect both in the lung arteries and the right ventricle of the heart, offers a significant advantage." said Michelakis, adding "This drug can have an immediate and direct clinical application, so we're pretty excited about these findings."