Efficacy of dapoxetine treatment in Chinese patients with premature ejaculation and possible factors affecting efficacy in the real-world practice

BACKGROUND: The treatment effect of dapoxetine in real-world practice is not well established. This study was to investigate the factors influencing efficacy of dapoxetine for the treatment of Premature ejaculation (PE) in the real-world setting. METHODS: Altogether 154 patients were followed up between Jan 2015 and Dec 2015. The clinical global impression of change (CGIC), premature ejaculation profile (PEP), the estimated intravaginal ejaculation latency time (eIELT) and estimated number of intravaginal thrusts before ejaculation (NITBE) were collected. The clinical characteristics of patients with CGIC = 0 and CGIC≥1 were compared. RESULTS: After 4 weeks treatment, an obvious improvement compared with the baseline was found regarding mean eIELT (2.4 ± 1.6 min vs 1.0 ± 0.7 min, P < 0.001) and mean NITBE (85.9 ± 61.9 times vs 37.4 ± 28.6 times, P < 0.001). The proportion of patients with a self-evaluation of at least “slightly better” and were categorized into “CGIC≥1” group was 70.1%. There were significant differences between patients in the “CGIC = 0” and “CGIC≥1” groups regarding mean NITBE (P = 0.010) and PEDT (P = 0.009) score at baseline. The adverse effects were acceptable. CONCLUSION: Dapoxetine was well-tolerated and improved the sexual satisfaction of patients with PE. The severity of PE based on PEDT and NITBE suggest that there could be an effectiveness change with dapoxetine use in real-world practice.