Sexual dysfunction in Huntington’s Disease: what do we really know?

Abstract

Introduction. In this edition, Szymuś et al. conducted a systematic review revealing sexual dysfunction to be more prevalent in patients with Huntington's Disease compared to controls. Clinical reflections. Sexual dysfunction in HD (SDHD) is common and significantly affects patient quality of life. Commonly used HD rating scales and treatment guidelines do not explicitly address SDHD, and research studies are limited by size and methodology. Clinical implications. It is important that validated sexual dysfunction screening tools be utilised in clinical and research settings.

Resurrection of sildenafil: potential for Huntington’s Disease, too?

“…Certainly, it cannot be determined whether effects can be interpreted as a dose–response or whether or not the group of possibly more or still sexually active sildenafil-intaking patients might have had more functional, motoric, and cognitive abilities as a biasing factor. This, however, remains unclear since no surveys about the sexual-activity and dysfunction in HD are included within the dataset [ 16 ]. Questionnaires like these might help to get a better systematical understanding of other influences on HD and, e.g., verify a hypothesis coming from Parkinson’s Disease (PD) research, postulating intact sexual activity in affected patients might correlate with better non-motor and motoric outcomes [ 17 ].…”