Recent study about doses of finasteride

[armandein]

http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/dmpk/25/2/208/_pdf
In Japan, the recommended dose for treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia is 0.2 mg once daily and this may be increased up to 1 mg/day.

 

[adolobe]

This is really nothing new. The original clinical trials for Propecial showed basically the same results.

This is why I personally only take .5mg daily

 

[JWM]

Hmmm...makes you wonder why dutasteride grew more hair then...

 

[Bryan]

Hmmm...makes you wonder why dutasteride grew more hair then...

People would basically think that 5 mg of finasteride (say) is a "much larger dose" than 1 mg, but it isn't when you consider only its ability to reduce DHT. To get the same or reasonably similar kind of DHT suppression with finasteride that you do with the standard dose of Avodart, you'd probably have to take 250 mg (or more) of the finasteride every day. Only then would it probably achieve similar hair-growing effects as dutasteride. How many people on these hairloss sites do you think would be willing to try THAT?

 

[JWM]

But Bryan, didn't 5 mg of finasteride grow more hair at 6 months than 1 mg? Or is it more than likely that it just worked faster, and the 1 mg would have eventually caught up?

 

[Private Ryan]

could it be the fact GSK know that in long term dutasteride have no real advantage over finasteride that why it was never out for hairloss.

 

[CCS]

I thought there were studies that showed that even though 1 mg of finasteride reduced DHT about the same as 0.2 mg, it regrew more hair in 6 months than 0.2 mg did. Last we discussed that, we speculated whether the difference would close in a year.

 

[Bryan]

I thought there were studies that showed that even though 1 mg of finasteride reduced DHT about the same as 0.2 mg, it regrew more hair in 6 months than 0.2 mg did.

Yeah, it did, but it wasn't really a big difference. The difference may not even have been statistically significant.

 

[Bryan]

But Bryan, didn't 5 mg of finasteride grow more hair at 6 months than 1 mg? Or is it more than likely that it just worked faster, and the 1 mg would have eventually caught up?

You're thinking of that 1996 dose-ranging study that Merck did with finasteride, aren't you? They reported haircounts for the 5 mg dose only after 12 months, there was nothing about its effect after only six months; and the smaller doses were only tested for six months. Too bad all the data wasn't measured in exactly the same length of time. Would have made for some interesting comparisons.

Here's all the reported haircount data from the study:

Placebo: -7 (6 months)
0.01 mg: -3 (6 months)
0.2 mg: 61 (6 months)
1 mg: 77 (6 months)
5 mg: 95 (12 months)

Obviously the 1 mg dose would have caught up at least _some_ to the 5 mg dose, if it had continued for a full year; but how close it would have gotten is pure speculation. Interestingly, Merck's huge Phase III trial for Propecia reported an average haircount increase of 86 hairs after a full year at the 1 mg dose, which seems perfectly reasonable in the context of this smaller study: better than the 6 month result at 1 mg, but not as good as 12 months at 5 mg.

 

[JWM]

Makes sense to me. Thanks, Bryan.