YNOT – A new spray-on treatment for premature ejaculation reportedly allows men to increase their sexual staying power by up to five times. The product works by numbing the penis without causing an undue affect on surrounding male or female tissues.Shades of Bill Margold. At one point in his on-camera career, Margold earned the nickname “Old Leatherdick” from the reputed practice of slathering his joystick with a particularly potent aftershave in order to desensitize the equipment and extend his sexual stamina.

In limited clinical trials, PSD502 helped men to delay orgasm by as much as 108 seconds, researchers told a meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America on Wednesday. According to the report, none of the 256 American, Canadian and Polish men who took part in the study or their partners experienced serious side effects.

Developed by Sciele Pharma Inc., a division of Osaka, Japan-based Shionogi & Co., the product combines local anesthetics Lidocaine and Prilocaine in an aerosol that is applied to the tip of the penis before sex. The spray rapidly absorbs into the skin, causing less desensitization than over-the-counter products currently available, the developers said.

Sciele hails the product as a boon for premature ejaculation sufferers, who may compose as many as one-third of U.S. men aged 18-59. Defined by the International Society for Sexual Medicine as inability to delay ejaculation for more than one minute post-penetration, PE is twice as common as erectile dysfunction, according to experts.

During the PSD502 trials, PE sufferers who were treated with PSD502 were able to last an average of 2.6 minutes before climax. Men who were given a placebo lasted an average of only 0.8 minutes.

“Premature ejaculation can have a powerful negative impact on the emotional and sexual lives of men and their partners,” Stanley E. Althof, PhD, executive director of the Center for Marital and Sexual Health of South Florida, noted in a statement. “…[W]e need to work to develop treatments, and these encouraging results with PSD502 seem to be a step in the right direction.”

If approved by the FDA, the product also may have applications in the adult entertainment industry, where the necessary duration and frequency of sex scenes can take a toll on male performers. Sciele said it plans to submit the product for regulatory review in the U.S. sometime in the first half of 2010. A prescription medication could be available in as little as a year.