Drug lowers risk of getting prostate cancer

Doctors reported Monday that a drug already sold for other prostate problems significantly cut the chances of prostate cancer being found in men with an increased risk of the disease.

According to study conclusion, dutasteride, sold as Avodart, lowered the chances of a prostate cancer diagnosis by 23 percent after four years of use.

Tens of thousands of men each year face a problem like those in the study: worrisome results from prostate cancer screening tests and biopsies that come back negative.

Dutasteride now joins finasteride, sold as Merck & Co. Inc.’s Proscar and in generic form, as a potential prostate cancer prevention drug. In February, health experts recommended that men consider these medicines if they are regularly getting screened for the disease.

Both shrink the prostate and curb testosterone, a hormone that helps cancer grow, but dutasteride does this in two ways and more completely than finasteride. An earlier study found that finasteride lowered the risk of prostate cancer being found in men with no known increased risk of the disease.