TOPIC: MEN'S PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE: melanoma cancer risk with use of ED medication (PDE5A Inhibitors)

A colleague of mine is actively researching the BRAF pathway associated with many of our melanoma cancers. I am placing this important forum topic in the General Phalloplasty Discussion section because like myself many PMMA patients have elected to take a PDE5A Inhibitors (Viagra, Cialis, Levitra) to help with their Erection quality post PMMA Enhancement. GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Lilly gain millions of dollars because of our dependence on these helpful Erection pills, they do improve our sexual confidence, but now at what cost?

Cialis at low dosage is being used to treat mild to moderate symptoms of BPH, Viagra has been effectively used to treat pulmonary hypertension, a chronic condition for respiratory patients. But using ED meds or PDE5A inhibitors to maintain an Erection post PMMA should be considered very careless from this point on. My professional friend knows my habits, and knew i took viagra every now and then for that sexual edge.

Melanoma is a highly metastatic cancer, and its 5 year prognosis is extremely poor, its very much a terminal cancer and responds very poorly to interferon therapy & Antineoplastic agents (Chemo), most patients end up in palliative care. We\'re ultimately looking for ways to attenuate enzymes involved in this metastatic cancer, and through RT-PCR we can quantify the effectiveness of a potential agent or \"drug\" my measuring the mRNA concentration levels of these mutant proteins involved in the melanomagenesis of such a deadly cancer. Trust me, its tough, finding funding for these efforts is even tougher.

But i\'m writing this as a warning to my friends of this forum, we are part of a Phalloplasty fraternity and I want you to live long and prosper. \"Nerd moment\". Somewhere between 50% of the known melanomas are involved in the BRAF pathway, and by even taking one ED pill you\'ve increased your chances of allowing a melanoma cell or cells to go rogue and opportunistically invade wherever they land. It\'s metastatic, meaning this is a cancer that uses your blood stream, lymphatic system to travel all over your body. I\'ve attached several documents that were forwarded to me, please take the time at the very least to read their abstracts. And if time permits, i\'ll do my best to answer your questions. My participation has been light over the last few years, I apologize, I\'m working on finishing my academic career.

The key point from one of the attached journals is ED medications (PDE5A inhibitors) are actively promoting the invasion of metastatic melanocytes by BRAF activation. Melanoma cancer is not the easiest cancer to explain, i\'ve given 15 minute botched presentations on it and that\'s because theres so many tiny details that i did not have time to explain. I hope the BRAF jpeg image helps show the pathway i\'m introducing to most of you. If you can live without your daily Cialis or viagra, please try, you don\'t want to increase your risks of developing one of the worst cancers, maybe just as bad as Glioblastoma. Urologists prescribe these ED meds like candy, and you can walk into any Tijuana pharmacy and buy 2 100 mg Viagras at the cost of a \"Everything on it\" Large pizza. Educate yourself on melanoma basics, webmd is better than nothing. I promise you this, most of your GPs & PAs will have no clue on the current draw backs of PDE5A inhibitors, their GPs not scientist, and the urologists will have a bias because they\'re often taken very good care of by the three pharma company reps I previously mentioned. Take control of your health, and best of luck to you PMMA & non PMMA friends.

I stand correct, Michael is a copy and paste writer, another word for that is plagiarism. I stand correct, Michael obvious didn\'t read anyone of the attached Journals, from one of the studies, the sample size of participants was statistically significant, but you wouldn\'t know that. Michael congrats, you\'ve proven to me you don\'t know much of anything, except you have a deeply rooted ignorance & dangerous bias on the subject. You are intimated by evidence based research (and you wouldn\'t know otherwise even if the facts were slapping you in the face of which I find quite humorous, thank goodness for Natural Selection). Hence I won\'t convince you otherwise, for that I\'m sorry. I\'m not paid 6 figures to fix the error in your reasoning, and even if I was I would consider you an outlier and move on to the next client. Bueno Suerte.

finis

Luke, offence I have read your previous threads and you make a lot out of nothing and seem like a hypochondriac. You are just one man who has read a an observational research paper that hasn\'t been proven. If any of this were true there would be a epidemic of skin cancer in the male population. Until there is further research and studies with actual human people to back it up, it\'s just a theory.

You can use the biggest medical words you can find to try give more theory more credibility, but it hasn\'t been proven. Many scientists keep getting their own research wrong, that they have to keep back tracking. One day it\'s good for you, the next one day it\'s bad because there so many variable they didn\'t take into account.

I really think you need to stop scaremongering people with your warped theories until you have actual number of men who have got skin cancer from Viagra, which in it self would be hard to prove.

And just because you are an academic research, doesn\'t prove anything. Go and do a study with thousands of men with cancer and ask them if they used Viagra, don\'t forget to have a control group.

And that previous response was a copy and paste from a medical website. Whether you read some papers for 1 to 10 years doesn\'t prove anything until you have actually evidence and not some observational theories. Whether a pathway is involved, there still so many variables and chemical processes in the body to just base your evidence on one thing.

Greetings Michael,

By your response I know for a fact you haven\'t taken the time to read any of the research papers I attached to this forum topic. I\'m an academic researcher who isn\'t motivated by media sensationalism, and in accordance with my writing style I\'ve provided peer reviewed academic sources for the friends of the forum to decide how they should manage their own personal health. I never use the word cure, because any informed researcher in the forefront of cancer research knows this is an extremely sensitive word that provides a fallacy of hope that currently doesn\'t exists in metastatic cancers. I appreciate your lengthy response, but it\'s highly ill informed, and forbes in not a academic resource for legitimate medical documentation. I\'m not going to further engage in a debate over this issue, since I do not see any academic credibility to your claims, and if you have been award with a science degree i\'m not here to size up our academic cocks. Cancer is an extremely personal subject to me, i\'ve exhausted 3 years of my academic career studying these processes in order to understand my own health and improve the lives of others. Even though I consider your generalized statements very tasteless and wreckless I wish you all the best. Err on the side of caution that your ill-informed opinion may influence some of our friends on this forum because of their personal lack of interests in science or understanding of the subject. TO THE FORUM, WHETHER YOUR BEING APPROACHED BY A BIBLE SALESMAN, or THE DECEITFUL TACTICS OF A PHYSICIAN (LORIA COMES TO MIND), HELL EVEN AN AMBITIOUS RESEARCH STUDENT ALWAYS ASK FOR PROOF. PROOF IS IN THE CITATION, CITATION=PEER REVIEWED RESEARCH. Adieu

There is no evidence whatsoever that Viagra causes skin cancer, despite some recent overzealous reports in the media. Correlation Not Causation Recent media has attracted attention to a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association which suggested further investigation was needed into a possible link between Viagra and skin cancer. To unpick the sensationalism that our newspapers so readily submit, we wanted to emphasise that this study does not stand as evidence for such a connection. Instead, it is an observation of a correlation which requires substantially more evidence to be taken as significant. Should I be worried that Viagra causes skin cancer? There is no evidence whatsoever that Viagra causes, or increases the risk, of skin cancer. This study is observational which means that the researchers are not sure there is a link, but they've noticed an interesting combination of events. Further research is therefore needed to look into this more closely. 'To look at a converse observation, Viagra came onto the market in 1998, and diagnoses of skin cancer actually started to fall.' Unfortunately when it comes to health research, many observational studies tentatively suggest 'links' and 'calls for further research' which are jumped on by the media as a 'cancer cure' or 'cancer cause'. Many of these correlations are later found to be to be erroneous, so if you take Viagra at the moment, please don't let this study worry you. In fact, to look at a converse observation, Viagra came onto the market in 1998 and at the same time diagnoses of melanoma (skin cancer) actually started to fall. Equally, a study in 2011 (highlighted by Forbes here) suggested that Viagra may even help the body's immune system to fight skin cancer and provide insight towards a new cancer treatment. Whatever the media reports, it's crucial to remember that the correlation of two elements does not mean there is a causal relationship. Until clinical evidence is found, it will do more harm than good to worry these suggested connections. What are the proven causes of skin cancer? The main proven cause of skin cancer is exposure to sunlight. So to genuinely lessen your chance of skin cancer, avoid excessive sun exposure. This is especially important in those with fair colouring and blue eyes. Use UV protection when out in the sun, avoid the midday sun and definitely avoid getting sunburned.

I\'ve done PCR measuring mRNA of Growth Hormone Releasing Peptides, but haven\'t worked with PT-14. My biochemistry friend who i\'ve been hiatus with might know more about the subject, I\'ll ask. On a separate note, I didn\'t want to keep my fellow Phalloplasty brethren in the dark concerning options for their erectile blood flow problems. A research study in Urology back in 2011, with a sample size of 24 participants showed some improvement in Erection hardness. Personally, the sample size is way too small to be statistically significant in my opinion, but I believe L-Citrulline supplementation needs further research before its scratched off as a potential option for patients. Nuts & me don\'t like each other, and L-Citrulline is converted into L-Arginine once inside the kidneys, and nuts are loaded with arginine so if anyone has an allergic reaction to nuts (peanuts, etc.) please exercise caution and consult a knowledgeable physician about your allergies before Citrulline supplementation is added to your diet. There\'s a few more studies about Citrulline that i\'ve read so theres definitely an interests in the subject. Honestly i\'m pretty bummed about the melanoma connection to PDE5A inhibitors, because I love the power of blue. But for me it was more about the stamina that comes with having a hard baseball bat of an Erection, no body wants to bring a foam nerf baseball bat to the major leagues, I think since most of my fellow comrades here are very self conscious of their sexual performance, every time we have intercourse its like playing for a world cup, but when you have the power of the blue pill its kind of like cheating, or for some making things even. Since stopping PDE5A supplementation I\'ve incorporated a practice that has helped improve my physical & mental stamina. I\'ve been working out 2 hours daily for the last month, and out of that time I spend 45-60 minutes doing consistent cardiovascular exercises, to the point where my muscle burn or my legs feel heavy. Experiencing that physical stress plays an influential role on my personal stamina, I\'ve noticed a positive correlation between handling academic stress and longer stamina/improved blood flow in the bed room. So if any of my comrades aren\'t doing daily stressed cardiovascular exercise you might be surprised on how it can improve your sex life. I use to be an athlete, but over the years i\'ve become very lazy, and laziness seems like the ultimate antagonists for having improved blood flow, in this case to our lower extremities. Cheers

Thx for info CHL...

What do you think of using a peptide called PT-14 as another way of helping with ED? As you know, this is injected and the brain/body is made to have better Erection and even some report better sexual feelings.....

BTW, I AM NOT advocating ANY ONE to use PEPTIDES

regards!

I have ED and getting strong erections without Cialis would be a much bigger struggle. So it looks like I\'m choosing between erections and life. Thank you for this information but it\'s just one more nail in the coffin for me. I don\'t know what I could do other than give up sex or get an implant.

i\'ll explain more after I wake up, [going to bed now]. I\'ll give you an insider opinion, in the academic community, as I or any of my academic mentors rush to publish our shared research we\'re prone to using words like preliminary data or further experimentation is need to rule out \"blank\". We do this because of several reasons; foot in the door for more research funding, there honestly isn\'t enough data (even if statistically significant data was in our results), i can think of a few others, at one end of the spectrum the BRAF researchers are saying to the clinical community the connection is valid, there is a direct association between PDE5A inhibitors and invasion of metastatic melanocytes! Yet the non Phd MDs are prone to bleaching out the connection between the two, either due to special interests or NCI politics which goes back to pharma\'s weight over the FDA and NCI (national cancer institute). You run this same scenario in the past with proton pump inhibitors, the acid reflux companies early on didn\'t want their patients to get off their drug, the patients didn\'t want to get off the drug either, yet the researchers were drawing conclusions on the long term use of the drug on how it affects bone metabolism. Now its clinically understood that long term use, over a year of being prescribed proton pump inhibitors makes you more prone to bone density issues. The same MD who prescribed acid reflux meds didn\'t consider treating you with probiotics or obtaining GI flora samples from an endoscopy to confirm you have a GI fungus issue. Ironically places like mexico, treat GI conditions very differently, they treat with the acid reflux meds + probiotics and anti-fungal medications based upon the presented patient. Bottom line if you read the papers through & through, & stop at the discussion, the results are very strong, yet the discussion section is the most subjective area in any scientific paper, thats why we have to use words like preliminary because we don\'t want to sound like some preaching fundamentalists. The papers offer HARD FACTS, there\'s more publications but i think we\'ve known the connection to PDE5A and BRAF activation long before the lawyers started giving their time to this issue. Just exercise judgment, you\'re only given one chance, it would be a harsh verdict to be diagnosed with melanoma due to ED med supplementation. There\'s a price to making scientific advancements, we\'re finding out some things we enjoy can us. Check out places like the City of Hope or the Phoenix Cancer Research Center\'s websites, melanoma treatment prognosis is EXTREMELY POOR!

Another Journal on BRAF, published in 2010: www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1002011?viewType=Print

Well I\'m fucked. 5 years of viagra use + many years of sun exposure / tanning. Thanks for posting anyway. I don\'t understand the Hazard Ratios...can you explain this? Also, the authors are saying this is preliminary data that might not be significant down the line. Do you think there\'s more to it than that?

I am not biased because I have read the paper you are talking about. And the first post was a medical website expressing that men don\'t need to worry about this hype, which I should have quoted. All that paper says is there might be a higher risk.

Me, biased? I really doubt you getting paid six figure and are over inflating your ego. Anyone can be anyone, on the internet. I would find it very worrying that as a \" researcher \" you are fixated on that you are right, even though I said before there is no studies confirming this theory, just your ego because you have to be right.


If it is true, I am sure will know after there are studies to confirm any of this. And when the time comes, if it does, the FDA will put up a warning, which they haven\'t.