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Testosterone patches can significantly boost the libido of some women who experience below-par sex drives after surgery to remove their ovaries.
The women report an average of one additional sexual encounter a week after starting to use the hormone, a study shows.
"It doesn't work for everybody, but when it works, it works nicely," said Dr Sheryl Kingsberg of University Hospitals of Cleveland in Ohio, the study's lead author.
Women in the study who said the patches offered them a "meaningful benefit" said they would keep using them.
Dr Kingsberg and her team analysed the results of a six-month trial of testosterone patches in 132 women reporting a lack of sexual desire resulting in personal distress or relationship problems.
All were in "surgical menopause", meaning that their ovaries had been removed, resulting in low production of sex hormones, including testosterone.
Proctor & Gamble Pharmaceuticals made the patches and funded the study.
Fifty-two per cent of the 64 women who were on the patches said they experienced a meaningful benefit, compared to 31 per cent of the 68 women on placebo. The women who reported meaningful benefits said they were engaging in 4.4 more episodes of "satisfying sexual activity" every four weeks, compared with 0.5 episodes more per month for women who reported no benefit.
They also went from "seldom" to "sometimes" feeling desire, while their level of personal distress dropped from feeling distressed "often" to "seldom".
However, women who reported no benefit from the patches showed no significant change in desire or distress, still "seldom" feeling desire and "often" feeling distress.
More than 85 per cent of the women who said the patches helped said they were "probably or definitely" interested in continuing to use them.
More than 90 per cent of those who said the patches didn't help said they were "probably or definitely" not going to keep using them.
It was not clear why some women benefited from the patches and others did not, Dr Kingsberg said.
Perhaps their sexual problems were not related to drive, or they did not respond biologically to the hormone.
The findings showed that a woman will know within three months whether the product works for her.
- Reuters
