Five-year efficacy of finasteride in 801 Japanese men with androgenetic alopecia

J Dermatol, 2015 Apr 22 doi: 10.1111/1346-8138.12890

Finasteride is widely used to treat androgenetic alopecia in men, although there are few long-term studies of its efficacy. In this study, Yoshitake et al. followed 801 Japanese patients for 5 years and saw a high response to treatment: improvement in 99.4% of patients, and disease progression halted in 100%. Using multivariate analysis, the authors found that finasteride was more effective in patients with mild disease and in those who started treatment at a younger age (under 40). Earlier studies reported lower efficacy of finasteride in Europeans, which points to ethnic differences in response to the drug. Overall, early treatment with finasteride is recommended for the best results in male androgenetic alopecia.