Pregabalin shows promise for premature ejaculation

At 150-mg doses, oral pregabalin appears to be effective for premature ejaculation (PE), increasing intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT), a recent study has found.

Researchers randomly assigned PE patients to receive 150-mg pregabalin (n=39; mean age, 31.7±7.09 years), 75-mg pregabalin (n=39; mean age, 32.1±6.3 years) or placebo (n=38; mean age, 30.9±7 years). Medications were taken 1–2 hours before sexual intercourse, and a stopwatch was used to measure IELT. The trial lasted for 2 weeks.

In those who received the higher dose of pregabalin, mean IELT increased from 38.7±15.2 seconds at baseline to 84.4±50.7 seconds after 2 weeks. The changes were also positive in both the 75-mg pregabalin (43.7±12.7 to 48.4±20.3 seconds) and placebo (43.1±13.4 to 44.7±14.8 seconds) groups, though to a much lesser degree. The corresponding mean percent change values were 145.2±143.3 percent, 13.7±55.2 percent and 4.2±19.5 percent, respectively.

The improvement elicited by the 150-mg dose was significantly greater than in both comparator groups. At baseline, IELT was comparable across treatment groups.

In terms of patient experience, 82 percent of men treated with 150 mg pregabalin benefited from the treatment. One patient achieved a 5-minute IELT, representing a 6-fold increase from baseline values. Two other patients had IELTs of 5 minutes. Age was not a modifying factor for IELT improvements.

These benefits came with a slightly heavier burden of safety concerns. The prevalence of adverse events in the 150-mg group was 20.5 percent, as opposed to only 12.8 percent and 2.6 percent in the 75-mg and placebo groups, respectively. However, all side effects were only mild or moderate in severity and did not lead to treatment discontinuations.