Medical researchers in Taiwan said "Our findings suggest that prospective studies should be undertaken to develop the appropriate clinical guidelines for evaluating concurrent or subsequent erectile dysfunction in OAG patients." Dr Shiu-Dong Chung findings were from research via a case controlled study of 4605 men over 40 years old, recently diagnosed with ED and 23,025 control patients (5:1 for each ED patient).

The control volunteers were paired by age and they did not suffer from organic or psychogenic erectile dysfunction. Common factors linking erectile dysfunction to glaucoma could include certain parts of metabolic syndromes, such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.

The medical team said, "To our knowledge, this is the first study to document the association between ED and OAG based on a population-based dataset.

This finding suggests that there may be a common mechanism of disease for ED and OAG, which is not entirely explained by the variables included in the multiple logistic model." Open-angle glaucoma can be seen as an indication when found in patients with erectile dysfunction to be associated with cardiovascular diseases. Suggested in the study, erectile dysfunction and open-angle glaucoma seem to have the similar links to endothelial dysfunction in connection with nitric oxide.

Joseph F. Harryhill MD, assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Urology at the University of Pennsylvania, since 1998, said "Sometimes men present with no cardiovascular symptoms, but you have to look at them and be concerned that erectile dysfunction is an early symptom of risk for cardiovascular disease such as coronary disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Now adding to that list would be the concern that men with erectile dysfunction also may have a higher incidence of open-angle glaucoma."

Commenting on the research report, Dr Harryhill said that at present his urology team during their consultations with patients being examined for ED, which they don’t as a rule check if they have been diagnosed with open-angle glaucoma or high intraocular pressure, although they do look for symptoms of vascular disease. "If this research pans out and it turns out that there is a strong link between these 2 conditions, maybe we should tell patients that they have an increased risk of having this problem and have their intraocular pressures checked" Dr Harryhill said.

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Written by Debra Evans