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HealthWatch: Drug May Help Prevent Prostate Cancer

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Mar 13, 2009 1:53 pm US/Eastern

HealthWatch: Drug May Help Prevent Prostate Cancer

Reporting
Dr. Max Gomez
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Prostate cancer will strike nearly 200,000 American men this year, and, out of those, nearly 30,000 will die.

But doctors now have a new weapon, a medication that could help prevent as many as one-third of those cases.

"My father had it, and my brother had it, and my grandfather may have had it," Fred Thompson says.

The family history Thompson refers to is one of prostate cancer. And, just as he feared, he did develop cancer.

"I made the decision to have my prostate removed," Thompson says. "About three years ago, I had the surgery. Fortunately, the cancer had not escaped the prostate gland."

While Thompson's cancer, like most prostate cancer, is treatable, experts agree that it's much better to never get cancer in the first place.

"What we would like to have is a strategy, where you wouldn't get prostate cancer," Dr. Darracott Vaughn, of NY Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Hospital, says. "We're not there yet, but we may have recently made a major stride forward."

That major stride lies in a little blue pill, an inexpensive generic drug called finasteride – brand name Proscar.

Finasteride has been used for years to help shrink enlarged prostate glands, but now two major studies have found that it also helps prevent almost one-third of all prostate cancers.

In fact, the results are so compelling that the American Urological Association and the American Society of Clinical Oncology have issued a recommendation for healthy men, who don't have prostate cancer but are at risk, to use finasteride for chemo-prevention.

"The person that is at risk for prostate cancer – over 50 years old, low PSA less than three, so not one that you would do a biopsy – might benefit from the use of finasteride," Dr. Vaughn says.

Thompson took finasteride for a few months, but stopped when it didn't ease his enlarged prostate symptoms. He says that had he known then that it might have prevented his prostate cancer, he may never have stopped.

"Perhaps I would have continued with that therapy," Thompson says. "And perhaps the outcome would've been very different. Who knows?"

The AUA Foundation is helping to spread the word to doctors and patients that they should consider taking finasteride after age 50. That is also around the time that all men should start getting an annual prostate exam and PSA blood test to screen for prostate cancer.

Side effects of finasteride are pretty minimal – a very small percentage of men report some potency issues.

The foundation is also awaiting results of a study on Avodart, a drug similar to finasteride that may be an even more powerful cancer preventative.

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