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How
might flutamide treat androgenetic alopecia
Flutamide is the generic name for the commercial brand name drugs
Euflex and Eulexin by Schering. Flutamide comes as 250mg oral tablets.
Flutamide is a non-steroidal antiandrogen which inhibits androgen
uptake. Flutamide also stops androgens from binding to receptors
in the nuclei of cells. Flutamide is used to treat a variety of
androgen influenced diseases such as prostate carcinomas, hirsutism,
acne, and alopecia. As an antiandrogen oral flutamide has been used
to treat female androgenetic alopecia, but only one or two published
studies on its effectiveness are available. One study involved treating
women with hirsutism, acne, or alopecia. The investigators reported
an 80% success rate for women with acne of alopecia when treated
with flutamide. They reported that Flutamide was significantly superior
to Spironolactone for treating androgen dependant conditions in
women. There are several studies on the use of flutamide to treat
androgen dependent hirsutism in women and all suggest moderate to
good success rates.
Another study looked at the efficacy of topically applied flutamide
versus finasteride in human bladnig sclpa skin grafted onto mice.
The researchers observed that flutamide was better than finasteride
in terms of promoting hair growth. From this study it may be
possible
for men to use topical flutamide and avoid the systemic side effects
that men develop when taking the drug orally.
How
might flutamide treat androgenetic alopecia references
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L, Dupont A, Gomez JL, Tremblay RR, Labrie F. Comparison of
flutamide and spironolactone in the treatment of hirsutism:
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A, Serafimovich S, Gilhar A. New topical antiandrogenic formulations
can stimulate hair growth in human bald scalp grafted onto mice.
Int J Pharm. 2000 Jan 20;194(1):125-34.
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SM, Gauthier S, Labrie F. Androgen receptor antagonists (antiandrogens):
structure-activity relationships. Curr Med Chem. 2000 Feb;7(2):211-47.
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II, Bayram F, Sahin Y, Kelestimur F, Tutus A, Ayata D. The
efficacy of 250 mg/day flutamide in the treatment of patients
with hirsutism.
Fertil Steril. 1996 Aug;66(2):220-2.
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