MONDAY, April 6 (HealthDay News) -- A new spray enabled men with premature ejaculation to delay their orgasm six times longer than before, according to a study that included 300 European men.

The men, with clinically diagnosed premature ejaculation, were randomly selected to receive a placebo spray with no active ingredients (100 men) or the PSD502 spray, which contains 7.5 milligrams of lidocaine and 2.5 mg of prilocaine (200 men).

During the three-month study, the men used either the placebo or the PSD502 spray five minutes before intercourse. The men and their partners then used a stopwatch to record the time from vaginal penetration to ejaculation. The men were instructed to abstain from sexual activity or masturbation for 24 hours before each recorded episode of intercourse.

The men who used the PSD502 spray (treatment group) delayed their orgasm from an average of 0.6 minutes to 3.8 minutes, compared to just over 1 minute for those who used the placebo spray. That means the PSD502 spray helped men last 6.3 times longer than normal, compared to 1.7 times longer than normal for those who used the placebo, the study authors said.

The study found that after three months of treatment:

• 90 percent of the men in the treatment group were able to delay ejaculation for more than 1 minute following vaginal penetration, compared with 54 percent of those in the placebo group.
• 74 percent of men in the treatment group were able to last 2 minutes before ejaculation, compared with 22 percent of those in the placebo group.
• 62 percent of men in the treatment group said their orgasms were "good" or "very good" after three months, compared with 20 percent before the start of the study. For men in the placebo group, the figures were 19 percent at the end of the study and 21 percent before the start of the study.
• More patients and partners in the treatment group reported improvements in perceived control, personal distress, satisfaction with sexual intercourse, and interpersonal problems.

The most common problems noted in the study were loss of erection and a burning sensation in the vagina.

The study findings were published in the April issue of the journal BJU International.

"Premature ejaculation can be a very distressing condition for men and can cause distress, frustration and make them avoid sexual intimacy," lead researcher Professor W. Wallace Dinsmore, of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, U.K., said in a news release.

"Our study shows that when the PSD502 spray was applied to the man's penis five minutes before intercourse it improved both sexual performance and sexual satisfaction, which are key factors in treating premature ejaculation."

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