Propecia

New Sexual Adverse Effects Added to Finasteride Labels.

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The labels of the alopecia drug Propecia (finasteride 1 mg) and the benign prostatic hyperplasia drug Proscar (finasteride 5 mg) are being updated with an expanded list of adverse sexual effects, the FDA has announced.

The updates:

  • The Propecia label will include libido, ejaculation, and orgasm disorders that persist after treatment ends.
  • The Proscar label will include decreased libido that persists posttreatment.
  • Both labels will note reports of male infertility or poor semen quality that improved after drug discontinuation.

The FDA said: “Despite the fact that clear causal links between finasteride … and sexual adverse events have NOT been established, the cases suggest a broader range of adverse effects than previously reported.”

When these drugs were approved in the 1990s, their labels noted sexual side effects that normalized after treatment ended. In 2011, the FDA updated the labels to warn of persistent, posttreatment erectile dysfunction.

Source: FDA drug safety information.

Big science zooms in on a new cure for baldness.

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In mice and men, baldness is a scourge that cries out for a cure. Fortunately, a far-flung group of American researchers is on it — and on Wednesday reported progress on this front in the very sober journal Science Translational Medicine.

Plucking hair follicles from the pates of 22 men with male-pattern baldness and an army of mice, researchers detected a key difference between patches where hair was growing and patches where it was thinning or bald: In humans, a prostaglandin called PGD2 was far more plentiful in areas of the pate that were bald than in patches where hair continued to grow; and in mice, the same prostaglandin was in large supply when they were in the shedding phase of their normal hair follicle cycle.

The team was led by dermatologist Luis Garza (then of the University of Pennsylvania, now at Johns Hopkins University) and by Penn dermatologist George Cotsarelis. The discovery that prostaglandins might be the catalyst that sets baldness in motion, was a surprise to the researachers, who “hadn’t thought about prostaglandins in relation to hair loss,” said Cotsarelis.

From there, researchers were able to identify the receptor — the cellular landing dock — for D2, called GPR44. Find a way to block that receptor, or somehow thwart PGD2’s path to it, and, voila! —baldness doesn’t happen. That, say the researchers, will be their next effort — to try topical treatments that block the GPR44 receptor. They hope the same approach might help find treatments that prevent hair thinning in women.

Male pattern baldness strikes 80% of men younger than 70, causing hair growth to thin in a distinctive pattern. Currently, just two medications, Monoxidil (marketed as Rogaine) andFinasteride (marketed as Propecia or Proscar), are available to combat hair loss.

Source:  Los Angeles Times