Effects of Finasteride on Hemospermia

Cho, In Rae; Lee, Keon Cheol; Jeon, Joon Seong; Park, Seok San

Abstract

PURPOSE
We evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of finasteride in the treatment of hemospermia, especially in prostatitis-related hemospermia.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Among the patients who visited our urologic department due to hemospermia from Jan 2000 to Oct 2003, 46 patients enrolled in the study. Semen analysis, expressed prostatic secretion, and transrectal ultrasonography were performed for all patients, and we determined whether or not the hemospermia was caused by inflammatory chronic non-bacterial prostatitis. We sorted all the subjects into 2 groups by the use of finasteride or not. We sub-divided the 2 groups by the presence or absence of prostatitis. In each of the 4 groups, the results were compared. Results were also recalculated after excluding sonographically abnormal cases.
RESULTS
In the 35 finasteride-treated patients, the prostatitis group showed a 75% (12/16) success rate whereas the non-prostatitis group showed 31.6% (6/19) success. This difference was statistically significant (p=0.01). In the 11 non-finasteride patients, there was no difference in success rate between the prostatitis group (57.1%) and non-prostatitis group (50.0%). After excluding 15 sonographically abnormal patients, the finasteride-prostatitis group showed an 80% (8/10) success rate whereas the non-prostatitis group showed a 25% (3/12) success rate.
CONCLUSIONS
Finasteride treatment in hemospermia was more successful in prostatitis than non-prostatitis patients. Efficacy was more prominent after excluding sonographically abnormal cases. Finasteride could be an useful agent in the treatment of prostatitis-related hemospermia. More extensive study is needed.