Despite mounting evidence showing the efficacy of a drug preventing prostate cancer provided by the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), neither primary care doctors nor urologists are prescribing it for their patients.
Survey results recently published online in a peer-reviewed journal indicate that as many as two-thirds of urologists and four out of five primary care doctors have never prescribed finasteride, a 5 alpha-reductase inhibitor (5ARI) that can significantly reduced the risk of developing prostate cancer.
Many urologists claimed that the reason why they weren't prescribing finasteride was because of a concern that it could induce an aggressive cancer, while most primary care doctors were simply unaware of the drug's ability to prevent prostate cancer.
CANCER TYPE(S)
Prostate cancer
TREATMENT TYPE(S)
Chemoprevention
WHERE WAS THIS RESEARCH PUBLISHED?
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention
By Ross Bonander
Source
Hamilton RJ et al. "Knowledge and use of finasteride for the prevention of prostate cancer." Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2010; DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-10-0082.
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