Baldness drug shows promise in preventing prostate cancer

But study findings also indicate a downside that will likely raise new questions as physicians and male patients address this cancer risk.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. July 14, 2003.

Washington -- Conversations between physicians and male patients over prostate health are likely to become more complicated given new findings that a drug now used to forestall balding and improve urinary flow may also prevent prostate cancer.

Researchers found that men who took a 5 mg tablet of the drug finasteride every day for seven years were 25% less likely to develop prostate cancer than were those taking a placebo. These results were published June 24 on the New England Journal of Medicine's Web site and are scheduled to appear in the July 17 print edition.

"Finasteride is the first drug found to reduce the risk of prostate cancer," said study head Ian Thompson, MD, professor and chair of the urology division at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. "The drug worked for men at low risk for prostate cancer, as well as those at high risk."

Age, level of prostate-specific antigen at time of enrollment, family prostate cancer history and race or ethnicity did not seem to affect the drug's preventive ability, said researchers. But they also sounded a cautionary note.

"Men in the study who developed prostate cancer while taking finasteride were more likely to have high-grade cancers," said Dr. Thompson.

The reason for more of the aggressive tumors is not yet known, although there is speculation that the drug's ability to shrink the prostate might make it more likely that the higher-grade tumors are detected.