A steroid inhibitor which shrinks the prostate gland - and low-dose treated baldness - also helps to prevent the cancer prostate, the researchers found. The findings come from a massive test, 7 year nearly 19,000 men. But although the drug called finasteride, caused a 25% reduction in prostate cancer, it also increased the risk of aggressive prostate cancer in people diagnosed with the disease. Doctors now hope to find out who is most likely to benefit from the drug.
When finasteride was approved in 1992, it was designed to treat men with an enlarged prostate. (His hair-restoring properties were noted later.) The doctors also asked whether its ability to block the natural conversion of testosterone into a more potent male hormone called dihydrotestosterone, in the prostate may prevent cancer. Previous research had linked male hormones at the onset of prostate cancer. Some scientists worry that many men might start taking finasteride as a preventive measure before it has been proven to do the job. So they quickly - many at the time said too quickly - launched Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, 18.882 recruiting older healthy men aged 55 and dividing them into two groups at random. A received finasteride, and the other received a placebo.
After 7 years, the researchers, led by Ian Thompson of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, met with 060 men. In the finasteride group, 18%, or 804 men had developed prostate cancer. In the placebo group, the number was 24% or 1147 men. (The typical incidence is about 6%, the team believes it has found more because the biopsies were performed systematically at the end of the study.) The difference was so striking that Thompson and his colleagues arrested study a year ahead of
.The drug has side effects, however, including problems with sexual arousal. Of greater concern were the highest rates of prostate cancer classified as aggressive. He developed in 6.4% of men in the finasteride group, compared to 5.1% in the placebo group
The difference in cancer rates of the most serious prostate, although small, "looks like a phenomenon, "said Peter Scardino, chief of urology at the cancer Center Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City notes that the increase could be misleading;. it is possible, for example, that the drug alters architecture of cancer cells in the prostate, making them only look worse. anyway, Scardino said, the study should be followed by others that evaluate the effect of the drug, for example, men high risk of prostate cancer.
Related Sites
Background on cancer prevention Trial prostate
National prostate cancer Coalition
information finasteride NIH
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