Finasteride induced depression a prospective study.docVIP

BMC Clinical Pharmacology BioMedCentral Research article Open Access Finasteride induced depression: a prospective study Babak Rahimi-Ardabili*1, Ramin Pourandarjani2, Peiman Habibollahi3 and Amir Mualeki1 Address: 1Clinical Pharmacy Laboratory, Drug Applied Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran, 2Sinas clinic of Dermatology, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran and 3Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Email: Babak Rahimi-Ardabili* - ba.rahimi@; Ramin Pourandarjani - r.pourandarjani@; Peiman Habibollahi - p_habibollahi@student.tums.ac.ir; Amir Mualeki - a_muleki@ * Corresponding author Published: 07 October 2006 Received: 04 March 2006 Accepted: 07 October 2006 BMC Clinical Pharmacology 2006, 6:7 doi:10.1186/14 72-6904 -6-7 This article is available from: /14 72-6904 /6/7 ? 2006 Rahimi-Ardabili et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Finasteride is a competitive inhibitor of 5 alpha-reductase enzyme, and is used for treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia and androgenetic alopecia. Animal studies have shown that finasteride might induce behavioral changes. Additionally, some cases of finasteride-induced depression have been reported in humans. The purpose of this study was to examine whether depressive symptoms or anxiety might be induced by finasteride administration. Methods: One hundred and twenty eight men with androgenetic alopecia, who were prescribed finasteride (1 mg/day) were enrolled in this study. Information on depressed mood and anxiety was obtained by Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Participants completed BDI and