Doctors at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital have found a whole new use for the popular erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. Sildenafil, as it is called by its more anonymous chemical name, may have the power to save babies. Chronic pulmonary hypertension is virtually a death sentence in newborn babies. It can begin with a heart defect, or for reasons that are not well explained; but when the blood pressure rises inside the lungs and stays that way, there is often little that can be done. A few small studies have recently suggested that babies with deadly pulmonary hypertension may respond with good success to Sildenafil.
