Last week we discussed how doctors have been reluctant to prescribe finasteride to men as a prophylactic treatment for prostate cancer. Marketed as Proscar by Merck, finasteride has been shown to reduce the incidence of some prostate cancer tumors but it turns out whether it can actually prevent the usually lethal, aggressive forms of the disease hasn t been established.
As ACSH advisor Dr. Clifford A. Hudis, chief of the Breast Cancer Medicine Service and attending physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, pointed out to us in an email: Prevention doesn t actually always seem to mean true disease prevention or mortality reduction. Hence the under-use of medications for this that you highlighted may be more reasonable than it seems.
You can say that Proscar prevents cases of prostate cancer, observes Dr. Whelan. That may be true. But what really matters is does Proscar extend life, prevent premature death? That question really has not been addressed yet.