Should Men Take Drug to Prevent Prostate Cancer?

[The Straight Story]

Should Men Take Drug to Prevent Prostate Cancer?

Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline thinks men who are at increased risk for prostate cancer should take its Avodart drug, generically known as dutasteride, to reduce the risk of getting the disease
If you could prevent a disease, especially one as scary as cancer, by taking a drug , would you do it? Most likely, yes.

That's exactly what drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) thinks men who are at increased risk for prostate cancer should do -- take its Avodart drug, generically known as dutasteride, to reduce their risk of getting the disease.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer found in American men, other than skin cancer, and is the second-leading cause of cancer death in men.

Another common condition for men as they age is an enlarged prostate gland, but that is a non-cancerous condition. Technically, it's called benign prostatic hyperplasia, and it doesn't lead to prostate cancer, although a man can have both conditions. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, the treatments for BPH range from watchful waiting to surgery and drugs such as GSK's dutasteride or Merck's (MRK) Proscar, generically known as finasteride, which shrink the prostate.

Cuts Cancer Risk, But...

Two years ago, a study of finasteride found that taking the drug as a preventive measure cut the risk of prostate cancer by a quarter in healthy men, but also found that the tumors detected were more aggressive. GSK conducted a similar four-year, international, placebo-controlled, randomized study that showed its dutasteride cut the risk of prostate cancer by 23% -- not a trivial reduction.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/should-men-take-drug-to-prevent-prostate-cancer/19430765/

[matt819]

1. Maybe

I'm no expert, just a guy who falls into the test your prostate every year or so category.

My numbers are slightly high. Doctor says test again in six months. If increased then, we'll discuss ways to deal with it - medication, wait-and-see, biopsy, whatever - at that time. Prostate cancer, he tells me, is slow moving, and at my age, with fairly routine caution, you can catch developments in time and do the necessary. Also, even if the issue is slight enlargement, as opposed to cancer, that's not terribly much to deal with.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that just because a medication might be pretty nifty, it doesn't mean everyone has to take it, or that everyone at risk needs to start taking it immediately, if not sooner. Granted, if you're 65 and your first prostate exam shows higher than normal number that prompt a biopsy, etc., then maybe it's time to start this regimen. Otherwise, caution seems the most sensible approach.

I read somewhere that if autopsies were done on men in their 70s who die of other causes, they'd find in many (how many, I can't recall) cases some sort of prostate issues - enlargement, cancer, etc. - that the deceased didn't even know he had.

Now, if there were a similar medication for liver cancer, then taking that immediately on first indication of a problem would make sense, since liver cancer expands quickly. But prostate - not so much.

[slampoet]

2. Zinc suppliments work better than 23% by the last study i heard.

But you can't charge a dollar a pill for Zinc......