Pharmacological strategies for the therapy of erectile dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction increases with aging and affects millions of men around the world. Vascular, hormonal and neurogenic factors are frequent causes of erectile dysfunction. In the last two decades different physiological mechanisms regulating penile erection have been identified and characterized in some detail at both local and central levels.These mechanisms may be all considered possible targets for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Research findings allow not only the discovery of drugs acting peripherally and / or centrally for the therapy of erectile dysfunction, but also revealed other different therapeutic strategies yet to be tested for this problem. This short review summarizes the main neural mechanisms controlling penile erection and the substances acting on these mechanisms discovered so far. Only a few of these substances are drugs commercially available for the therapy of erectile dysfunction.