Finasteride has been shown to prevent prostate cancer in men

According to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, finasteride can prevent prostate cancer in men for up to 16 years The study was designed to determine whether finasteride, a drug used to treat prostate enlargement and male type hair loss (http:// could prevent prostate cancer in men over 55 years old The study recruited 18882 men between 1993 and 1997 When researchers found that finasteride reduced prostate cancer risk by 25% in 2003, they stopped the experiment In one study, researchers used patient information from the PCPT study to link these patients to information about their participation in healthcare between 1999 and 2011 They were surprised to find that they successfully matched 75% of patients in the PCPT study They created an algorithm to pick out prostate cancer diagnosis information from the national elderly medical insurance data (http:// and detect changes over time (http:// The researchers found that 3244 participants in the PCPT were diagnosed with prostate cancer 16 years later than the control group on average They also found that participants in the PCPT who used finasteride had a 21% lower risk of death from prostate cancer within 16 years Researchers say the findings provide exciting data that finasteride can delay pancreatic cancer by up to seven years The drug has small side effects and can protect men from prostate cancer for up to 16 years after they stop using it