New Update On Prostate Cancer Prevention With Finasteride Creates A Dilemma For Patients

  We've all heard the phrase, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."  Well, that saying may hold particular relevance while reviewing a new research report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The report is an important one. It is an 18 year follow-up of a study designed to show whether the use of the drug finasteride could reduce the incidence and deaths from prostate cancer. The study was called the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial and when it was initially reported in 2003 it showed that the drug could reduce the incidence of prostate cancer by almost 25%.  However, there was a catch: there was actually an increase of almost 27% in the number of high grade-or more serious-prostate cancers in the group treated with finasteride compared to those men who did not get the drug. The men in this trial were followed very closely. Since this trial was done in an era when PSA testing to find prostate cancer "early" was part of routine care, these men were screened regularly with the PSA test. The originally reported results of the trial meant two things to the researchers: first, finasteride was successful in reducing the frequency of prostate cancer, but most of that decrease was in the lower grade, less harmful forms of the disease, and second, it raised the question of whether the drug actually promoted more serious forms of prostate cancer. Some experts argued that in fact there weren't more numerous high grade tumors, only that finaste...
Source: Dr. Len's Cancer Blog - Category: Cancer Authors: Tags: Cancer Care Early detection Medications Prevention Prostate Cancer Radiation Therapy Research Screening Treatment Source Type: blogs