Proscar or finasteride doesn't seem to have any positive impact on patients who are already diagnosed with prostate cancer, reports Medical Xpress.
Proscar is hyped as reducing the risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer, however, it may not help men who are already diagnosed with the disease in any positive way, says the report. The survival rate doesn't seem to have impacted with the regular intake of Proscar. In fact it may be similar to men taking placebo.
"There is no evidence that finasteride is worse than placebo, in terms of overall survival," said lead author Phyllis Goodman, a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle. "If you are inclined to give finasteride to prevent cancer, survival shouldn't be a reason not to do it. You may not be improving survival in the long run, but you are avoiding having to deal with a diagnosis of prostate cancer."
Dr. Anthony D'Amico, chief of genitourinary radiation oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston does not recommend the use of Proscar for men without reducing the risk of death due to prostate cancer.
"This lessens the importance of finasteride, because if you wanted to use it as a preventive measure you hope the death rate would go down," he said. Dr. D'Amico noted that the new study was based on overall death rates and not specific to prostate cancer, hence it makes it difficult to run into conclusions.
"Without a survival improvement it's hard to justify using the drug. Let me see what the cancer-specific survival looks like and then we can decide if it's appropriate at all."
Researchers gathered information on deaths of men being treated with Proscar or a placebo, which included 18,000 men who consumed Proscar for seven years. The data showed more than 5000 deaths due to prostate cancer out of which 2,584 deaths among men who consumed Proscar and 2,544 deaths among men who took placebo, says the report.
Researchers with conclusion on the study said that "finasteride administration for seven years does not appear to affect mortality but significantly reduces the risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis."
A health expert added his perception on the use of Proscar saying that it may slow down the process of prostate cancer growth, "There are individuals who may benefit from being put on this drug and may rest a little bit easier at night knowing that it may not have a negative outcome on their long-term survival," Dr. Louis Kavoussi, chairman of urology at North Shore-LIJ Arthur Smith Institute for Urology in New Hyde Park, New York said.