Women Call Improved Libido With Testosterone Patch a Meaningful Benefit

CLEVELAND, Aug. 15 -- For women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder following surgical menopause, low doses of testosterone delivered by an investigational transdermal patch improved desire and function, reported researchers here.

Fifty-two percent of women who received 300 mcg per day of testosterone transdermally said they had experienced a "meaningful treatment benefit" versus 31% of women in the placebo group (P=0.025), wrote Sheryl Kingsberg, Ph.D., of University Hospitals, and colleagues, in the August issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Overall, women randomized to testosterone reported an increase in frequency of sexual activity compared with women in the placebo arm -- an increase in sexual activity of 4.4 times per four weeks versus 0.5 times per four weeks for women in the placebo group (P

Women in the testosterone arm were also more likely to report that the treatment "met their expectations" than women in the placebo group, 47% versus 27% (P=0.030), they wrote.

Not surprisingly women who said the treatment was beneficial were also more likely to be willing to continue treatment -- 85% versus 10%.

The authors said, however, that there was a potential for selection bias in the study because while the sample was representative of the study population, "the sample was not randomly selected."

Moreover, they because that interviews were only conducted at study sites within the United States, but since more than 90% of the participants in the two randomized trials were enrolled at U.S. centers, "this geographic limitation would not be expected to have any substantial effect on the results."