STUDY ON FINASTERIDE

Study Suggests Finasteride May Not Be Widely Prescribed For The Prevention Of Prostate Cancer.

Bloomberg News (8/11, Fridson) reports, "Researchers urged doctors to discuss with patients the benefits of Merck & Co.'s Proscar for preventing prostate cancer, after a study found that prescribing of the product didn't increase when a 2003 trial showed the medicine wards off tumors." The "drug, also sold generically as finasteride, was shown to reduce some men's risk of developing prostate cancer by a quarter, to 18 percent from 24 percent," according to the 2003 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Thus, the "American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Urological Association issued a joint guideline in 2009 recommending that 5-alpha reductase inhibitors be considered for prostate cancer prevention in healthy asymptomatic men with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level of 3.0 ng/mL or less who receive regular screening for prostate cancer," Medscape (8/10, Nelson) reported. "But, according to the new survey, 64% of urologists and 80% of primary care physicians never prescribe finasteride for prostate cancer chemoprevention." In the study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, "55% of urologists expressed concern about inducing high-grade tumors, and 52% of primary care doctors were unaware that finasteride could be used as a chemopreventive agent."