Dutasteride as an adjunct to Finasteride.
At the ISHRS Las Vegas conference, an interesting lecture suggested that from their case studies, there is additional benefit from combining Propecia and Avodart (Finasteride and Dutasteride respectively).
Specifically, those patients that had some response (i.e. it slowed hair loss but didn’t stop it or regrow hair) and those that previously had good regrowth of hair from Finasteride (but after five years noticed some deterioration again) did get improvement by adding just one 0.5mg capsule of Dutasteride once weekly whilst continuing their existing Finasteride dose.
This is interesting because it does demonstrate crossover benefits whilst keeping the dose very low, probably helped by the fact that Dutasteride has a long half life and adds just enough extra DHT suppression synergistically, to regain hair. It correlates with the known effect that for some men, the Finasteride effects do wane after five years – clearly lowering DHT is effective but some patients do need lower levels than others to completely stop the process.
We shall be recommending patients consider this option as it is a very cost effective treatment, especially now prices for Finasteride and Dutasteride have come down.