Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of the finasteride (5 mg/day) plus flutamide (125 mg/day) combination therapy in unselected women with moderate to severe hirsutism.

Patients and methods: Thirty hirsute women were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. Sixteen patients (group 1) were treated with flutamide (125 mg per day) and 14 patients (group 2) were treated with finasteride (5 mg per day) plus flutamide (125 mg per day) for 12 months. Hirsutism score was measured according to the modified Ferriman–Gallwey scoring system. Pre and post-treatment evaluation of hirsutism score, and serum FSH, LH, estradiol, total testosterone, free testosterone, androstenedione, DHEAS and SHBG were obtained. Blood chemistry and side effects were evaluated during the study.

Results: At the sixth month of the treatment, flutamide alone and combination therapy resulted in similar improvements. The reductions in hirsutism score (% of the baseline) at 6 months were 35% for group 1 and 33% for group 2. Combination therapy also resulted in (49%) similar improvement to flutamide alone (45%) at 12th months of the treatment.

Conclusion: Although both drugs have different action mechanisms, combination of flutamide and finasteride is not better than flutamide alone in women with hirsutism.