TUESDAY, Jan. 29 (HealthDay News) -- In a two-year, observational follow-up study of the four-year REduction by DUtasteride of prostate Cancer Events (REDUCE) clinical study, men demonstrated a low rate of new prostate cancer diagnoses, although those men who had been treated with the 5α-reductase inhibitor (5ARI) dutasteride exhibited twice as many prostate cancers compared with placebo-treated men, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Urology.
In an effort to continue collecting data on the occurrence of newly diagnosed prostate cancers, Robert L. Grubb, M.D., of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues conducted a two-year observational study following 2,751 men who had participated in the four-year REDUCE study.
The researchers found that 14 cases of prostate cancer were identified in men who had received dutasteride during the REDUCE trial, compared with seven cases in those who had received placebo. However, none of these were high-grade prostate cancers (Gleason score 8 to 10) and no new safety issues were identified.
"A possible reason for this difference is that any prostate cancer that may have been suppressed by dutasteride during REDUCE was no longer being suppressed for those subjects who did not continue 5ARI therapy," the authors write.
Several authors are employees of GlaxoSmithKline, which funded editorial support for the manuscript.
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