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Effect of finasteride on risk of prostate cancer: How little we really know
Author(s) -
Rubin Mark A.,
Kantoff Philip W.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of cellular biochemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.028
H-Index - 165
eISSN - 1097-4644
pISSN - 0730-2312
DOI - 10.1002/jcb.10787
Subject(s) - finasteride , prostate cancer , medicine , prostate , oncology , urology , cancer , spurious relationship , gynecology , computer science , machine learning
The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) reported conclusively that finasteride prevents or delays the detection of prostate cancer. One perplexing finding was that more high‐grade tumors were detected in the finasteride treated group. It is hard to put this into perspective because of the limited published data on the effects of finasteride on prostate cancer. The strong possibility exists that the increase in high‐grade tumors may be due to a treatment effect, which causes intermediate grade cancers to appear to be high‐grade or aggressive tumors. Confirmation of a spurious tumor grade “inflation” will make the conclusions of this study clearer and define the benefits of finasteride chemoprevention in a more favorable light. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.