Viagra doesn’t increase melanoma risk, the lifestyle does

Stacy Loeb, an urologist from the New York University, preceded a study for finding out whether there’s any link between skin cancer and erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs.

The findings of the study have allowed her to conclude that Viagra and other ED drugs don’t cause melanoma; according to the study, socioeconomic features and lifestyle of the typical ED patients, for instance, their tendency of vacationing in sunny regions, put them at high risk of developing the condition. The entire study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on June 23.

During the study, Loeb and her team combed through medical records of as many as 20,235 Swedish men. The team decided to carry out the study on men in Sweden because it’s one of the very few countries that keep detailed medical records, which can be used by researchers for correlating rates of different diseases with factors such as lifestyle choices, demographic characteristics etc.

Out of the 20,235 men, 4,065 faced diagnosis of malignant melanoma between 2006 and 2006. Just 435 of all those malignant melanoma patients had taken tadalafil or Eli Lilly’s Cialis, vardenafil or GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer’s Levitra, or sildenafil or Pfizer’s Viagra.

Viagra

Loeb informed that men filling at least one prescription for an erectile dysfunction drug were found to have 21% greater chances of developing malignant melanoma. The percentage was big enough to raise alarm bells among ED drug users and also appeared to validate the findings of a 2014 paper which reported that as many as 142 people who took Viagra have been diagnosed with malignant melanoma.

However, Loeb and her colleagues were not convinced with these results and started digging deeper into the numbers acquired from the Swedish records. They found that the majority of the men developing melanoma have higher educational levels and disposable incomes. To put it otherwise, they are usually men who can afford luxurious vacations at plush beachside resorts and other expensive places where chances of getting exposed to sun is extremely high.

Loeb reported that similar features are also observed in men who have the money to buy ED drugs; for those who don’t know: even if the ED drugs are covered by insurance, they can be extremely expensive.

When not covered by insurance, a single Viagra pill can have a price tag of up to $50. Even when the insurance companies cover the medicine, they often end up charging the highest possible co-pay.

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After establishing a common characteristic observed in melanoma patients and ED drug users, Loeb wanted to prove that melanoma is not caused by ED drugs, and lifestyle of the ED drug users is the factor responsible for causing the disease.

To do that, she combed through the registry to gather information on another skin cancer type; it’s called basal cell carcinoma. It was found that melanoma risk among ED drug users is almost equal to basal cell carcinoma risk. According to Loeb, presence of a second skin cancer type clearly shows that melanoma cases most likely don’t have any link with actions of ED drugs on the user’s body.