Drug treatments for women's sexual disorders

Abstract

This article is a review of the available evidence of prosexual effects of drugs for women's sexual disorders. Sexual function and its disorders in women are discussed with special emphasis on psychophysiological measures and the differentiation between sexual disorders. This discussion may serve to put in perspective the complexities of women's sexual response and possible drug effects. Searches in Medline and EMBASE resulted in finding many reports of prosexual effects. Substitution therapy in postmenopause is the only well documented treatment to relieve sexual problems. There is evidence from experimental studies for an influence on physiological sexual arousal, but not on subjective sexual experience of adrenergic compounds. Knowledge about prosexual effects in women of most other drugs is based on studies of augmentation therapies, or studies of doubtful design, and often reports about case studies with reliance only on subjective reports.