My Doctor Said Finasteride Makes Prostate Cancer Untreatable!

After much consideration, I finally made an appointment with my physician to discuss going on Propecia to halt further hair loss. I figured that I really couldn’t lose – a drug to stop my hair loss and help reduce my chance of getting prostate cancer. A double threat – sounded like a good idea! My doctor who is very knowledgeable informed me of something I had never heard before. He said that even though Propecia (finasteride) helps to prevent prostate cancer in most men – some men do develop prostate cancer anyway, even while on the drug. He said the prognosis for treatment of prostate cancer is very good, but if you are one of the men who develop prostate cancer WHILE ON FINASTERIDE the cancer is extremely aggressive and you will undoubtably die from the disease. He said since I do not have any of the risk factors for developing prostate cancer, he did not think it was worth chancing developing an untreatable form of prostate cancer to save my hair. Have you ever heard this…that even though Propecia helps to reduce the risk of prostate cancer that if you get the disease anyway, that it is untreatable due to it being so aggressive?

The report on the study of over 15,000 men showed that although the cancer risk on 5mg of finasteride for 7 years decreased the incidence of cancer by 25%, of those who did get cancer, the classification of aggressiveness (judged by the Gleason score) is higher in some of the prostate cancers found. This is a pathologist’s description of the tumor based on appearance under a microscope.

There is some controversy on this issue, because some doctors believe that the Gleason score may not be indicative of the reality seen in long term follow-ups of these cancers, which I believe did not show more clinical aggressiveness. One medical paper discussed the overall risk to life when one compared the decreased incidence of 25% for cancers in patients on long term finasteride, with the risks to life with a possible more aggressive tumor. The claim that one risk may offset the other was in consideration. Where ever the truth lies, this finding is what it is without any final conclusions drawn at this time.