Scientific articleSildenafil as a Therapeutic Option for Digital Ischemic Ulceration: Case Report
Section snippets
Case Description
A 37-year-old woman presented to the emergency unit of our hospital with critical upper limb ischemia. She complained of increasing pain in the right forearm and a freezing cold feeling in the hand. Her past medical history included a nontreated Raynaud phenomenon of the right hand diagnosed 5 months before. She also had multiple associated risk factors including heavy smoking with oral contraception use. She was screened for coagulopathy or hypercoagulative state, but nothing could be found.
Discussion
In this case report, the patient avoided amputation after sildenafil administration. This patient experienced ischemic pain for months without any relief, and the naturally developed collateral circulation was not enough to relieve the patient's pain and measured O2 levels. Therefore, we think that improvement was likely related to sildenafil administration.
Sildenafil is known to activate the nitric oxide/protein kinase G pathway, which has an important role in vascular tone regulation and in
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No benefits in any form have been received or will be received related directly or indirectly to the subject of this article.
S.M.K. and M.D. contributed equally to this work (co-first authors), and L.A.A. and W.R. contributed equally to this work (co-last authors).