Experts promote baldness drug for prostate cancer

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions of healthy men 55 and older should consider taking finasteride, a drug used to treat prostate enlargement symptoms and baldness, to prevent prostate cancer, two top U.S. medical groups said on Tuesday.

Healthy men who are screened regularly and have no symptoms of prostate cancer should discuss with a doctor the possibility of taking a finasteride pill daily to try to ward off the disease, the groups recommended.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Urological Association recommendations said medical studies show the risk of prostate cancer drops by about 25 percent among men taking the drug.

Finasteride is a type of drug called a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor and is available generically to treat urinary problems caused by enlargement of the prostate. Merck and Co sells it as the baldness remedy Propecia. It also was sold by Merck as Proscar to treat enlargement of the prostate before it became available generically.

Finasteride lowers the level of a hormone that can contribute to the growth of prostate cancer.

The studies also set aside earlier worries the drug in some men might promote aggressive prostate cancer, the groups said.

The recommendations were based on evidence in 15 studies, the best known of which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003.

Dr. Barnett Kramer, a disease prevention specialist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and co-chairman of the panel that drafted the recommendations, said taking the drug to prevent the disease could cost more than $1,000 a year.