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Dr. Geoffrey Sher is angry and wants to go on record.
"Firstly, let me tell you how disappointed I am... that an article on something like this comes out in the lay press before it comes out in the journals," he remarked when asked about the April 2000 release of his and co-author Jeffrey D. Fisch's cohort study "Vaginal sildenafil (Viagra): a preliminary report of a novel method to improve uterine artery blood flow and endometrial development in patients undergoing IVF" in Human Reproduction.
While he had some choice, descriptive adjectives for the London journalist who first leaked the story, Sher's primary concern is that the mishandling of such information can result in patients with unwarranted expectations and, in the worst case scenario, the misuse of a drug like Viagra at the expense of newly-conceived embryos.
Upon hearing of the premature release of some of his study's information, Sher spoke with Dr. Helen Beard (then-Deputy Director of Human Reproduction) and the journal's editor at the time, R. G. Edwards, and all agreed that damage control should be done via the morning news shows (NBC's Today and CBS' The Early Show). Calling the circumstances "embarassing" (generally, information from published studies is not released prior to a journal's publication date), Sher nevertheless felt it important "that the right information get out to people real fast."
As is usually the case with "breaking" medical news, the use of Viagra to treat some cases of uterine lining (endometrium) dysfunction is the result of years of preliminary study. Sher, Executive Medical Director of the Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine, is a pioneer in studies of endometrium thickness and appearance and those characteristics' impact on the likelihood of pregnancy (especially in IVF). A uterine lining of less than 9 millimeters thickness, measured just prior to egg retrieval, is now considered sub-optimal for conception. According to Sher, there are certain categories of patients who seem particularly at risk of conception difficulty related to endometrium problems:
The above categories make up roughly 60% of uterine lining receptivity problems, leaving the remaining 40% with no apparent explanation. Sher and others assume that age and certain health conditions may be to blame.
© Tracy Morris
