Prospective double-blind randomized controlled trial of terazosin, finasteride and allylestrenol in the management of benign prostatic hyperplasia

Abstract

Medical management is rapidly becoming a very im-portant part of the armamentarium of the urologist in-volved in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. The commonest options for medical management include alpha-blockers, 5-alpha reductase inhibitors, and pro-gestational anti-androgens. We present a double-blind randomized controlled trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of terazosin, finasteride and allylestrenol, the prototype drugs in each of these respective categories. A total of 140 patients who satisfied the inclusion and exclusion criteria were inducted into the trial after an informed consent. They were randomized into 4 groups, which received placebo, terazosin, finasteride and allylestrenol respectively for 6 months. Since 29 patients did not complete 6 months of therapy, there were 111 evaluable patients at the end of the study. We found that these 3 drugs produce comparable improvement in symp-tom score (-40%), flow rates (-60%) and PVR (-50%) which is significantly better than that in the placebo group. Both allylestrenol and finasteride bring about a comparable reduction in prostate volume (-23%), which is statistically significant as compared to the placebo and terazosin groups. Terazosin in doses of I and 2 mg/ day was, found to be effiective and well-tolerated in the vast majority of our cases. No adverse effects were seen in the placebo and finasteride groups, while 9.6% in the terazosin group had postural hypotension and 10.7% in the allylestrenol group had some loss of libido, prob-lems which were reversible upon cessation of therapy.

Keywords

• Medical Management; Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia; Terazosin; Allylestrenol; Finasteride.