Drug Cuts Prostate Cancers; Deaths Unchanged

A drug used to treat an enlarged prostate also reduces prostate cancer cases by nearly one-third and does not affect the risk of death, a new study finds. The research is an 18-year follow-up on an earlier study. Nearly 19,000 men were randomly assigned to receive either finasteride (Proscar) or placebo (fake) pills. The first phase of the study showed fewer prostate cancers for men who took finasteride. But they had a higher rate of high-grade cancers, which are more likely to spread. The new study looked at what happened to these men over time. Prostate cancer diagnosis was reduced by about 30% for those who got the real drug. About 3.5% of the cancers in this group were high-grade, compared with 3% in the placebo group. But death rates were the same whether men received the real drug or not. The drug also did not change death rates for men with high-grade cancers.