Avodart – An Update

I would like to know what you found out in regards to Avodart at the hairloss convention. Please get back to me when you get a chance.

There is a strong suggestion that Avodart will work better than Propecia from what I heard at the meeting. There are, however, many questions not answered such as:

1. What is the appropriate dose considering that there is a half life of 6 weeks for the medication in your body? Nobody seems to have a good answer to this question.
2. Some think that Avodart may stay in the tissues for over 6 months, so what effect could this have on your system?
3. What is the long term safety of Avodart taken by young man? All of the documented studies are on men over 50 (old-‘farts’ like me)

These are the reasons that most doctors do not want to prescribe Avodart ‘off label’ (not FDA approved for hair loss treatment). From a medical-legal point of view, as well as a licensing issue, I can not really prescribe it. Also, my expertise is in surgery, not medications (although I try to use medications I command and know forward and backward). There are some dermatologists, internists, urologists and family doctors that would prescribe this medication, and if you want to go that route, you should try to find one of them to prescribe it for you. With an off-label use, the issues of safety are risks that you must take.

The preliminary studies that were presented indicate that it works to grow hair when Propecia fails to do so. Still, Propecia should be the first line for the medical treatment of hair loss. What does concern many doctors, however, is that there may be a Vioxx type of hidden side effect in the young man that is not known. Will it produce cancers or heart disease or some other problem that is not yet identified? This is the reason we look to the FDA, to define safety and effectiveness for us. So far, the safety is not clear and the effectiveness appears to be coming into view through unofficial channels.