TUESDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that Avodart, a drug used to treat an enlarged prostate gland, may help slow the progression of early stage prostate cancer, reducing the need for aggressive treatment in some men.

Prostate cancer can grow and spread slowly, which is why some men are urged to engage in so-called watchful waiting when the cancer is first diagnosed. Avodart (dutasteride) may help such men feel comfortable with surveillance as opposed to radical treatment, the researchers noted.

"The concept of active surveillance is gaining traction in most parts of the world," said study author Dr. Neil E. Fleshner, head of the division of urology at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Still, some men are uncomfortable with doing nothing in the face of a cancer diagnosis, he said. "By using this drug, we can improve the proportion of men who remain committed to the surveillance."

The findings are published online Jan. 25 in The Lancet.

According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, one out of every six men in the United States will develop prostate cancer in his lifetime. But because many of those cancers are low-grade, most will die of something else.

Avodart belongs to a class of drugs called 5-alpha reductase inhibitors. These drugs work by interfering with the effects of certain male hormones on the prostate. In the three-year study, prostate cancer progressed in 38 percent of 144 men with early prostate cancer who were treated with Avodart and 48 percent of the 145 men who received a placebo.

Men seem less anxious about the cancer diagnosis when they are doing something more proactive, Fleshner said. "The drug augments active surveillance and avoids most of the side effects associated with surgery and radiation," he said. Prostate removal surgery and/or radiation can lead to impotence and incontinence, he said.

The medication does have side effects, however, including reversible breast enlargement and tenderness and some sexual dysfunction.

"We know that we are over-treating prostate cancer," said Dr. Louis Potters, chairman of radiation medicine at North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Manhasset, N.Y.

"In the U.S., patients have a tendency to hear the word 'cancer,' and want to treat it right away," he said. "In these men with early prostate cancer, we can now say, 'Let's put you on this medication, and see what happens over the next couple of months.'"

However, some experts have concerns about 5-alpha reductase inhibitors. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently issued a warning that men who take these drugs to treat enlarged prostate glands may be at increased risk for high-grade prostate cancer.

Dr. Ryan Terlecki, an assistant professor of urology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said this may dampen enthusiasm for use of the drug to treat cancer.

"The overall role that these medications will play for urologists will decrease," Terlecki said. Doctors will likely begin looking toward noninvasive and/or non-medical treatments such as the use of thermal heat to cope with some of the symptoms of prostate conditions, he added.

More information

Learn more about prostate cancer at the American Cancer Society  .

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Subtle problems with memory and thinking skills -- known as mild cognitive impairment -- often precede Alzheimer's disease, and a new study finds that men are at higher risk for these troubles than women.

Lead researcher Rosebud Roberts and her colleagues looked at 1,450 people from Olmsted County, Minn., who were between 70 and 89 years old and free of dementia in October 2004. Some three and a half years later, 296 had become mildly impaired.

New cases of mild cognitive impairment were consistently higher among men, except in the 85 to 89 age group. Overall, the risk was 40 percent higher for men.

Having a high school or less education was also linked to greater risk, and the study found that the combination of being male without college education brought an "unexpectedly high risk" of impairment that did not involve memory loss.

Currently married people were at lower risk of mild cognitive impairment than those widowed, divorced or single.

"One of every 16 persons in this age group develops this condition in a given year," said Roberts, a professor of epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "As we have a large increase in baby boomers reaching the age of 65 and older, this is going to have a tremendous impact."

Bill Thies, chief medical and scientific officer for the Alzheimer's Association, commented on the study.

"It's an interesting observation that mild cognitive impairment is a little more common in men than in women," he said. "It's not clear what that means or even if it's universal. Certainly, it hadn't been reported before in much smaller studies. It may be that they found it because their study is big."

Roberts said the difference may be due to timing of risk factors for dementia. "Diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension may occur at an earlier age in men than women," she said. In future studies, the risk factors should be studied separately for men and women, the study authors said.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, everyone who develops the age-related brain disorder experiences a stage of minimal impairment. "People with mild cognitive impairment experience a decline in memory, reasoning or visual perception that's measurable and noticeable to themselves or to others, but not severe enough to be diagnosed as Alzheimer's or another dementia," the association states.

However, not everyone who has mild cognitive impairment will go on to develop Alzheimer's.

For the study, participants met with nurses and physicians and took tests at 15-month intervals to measure memory, executive function, visual-spatial skills, dementia symptoms and neurological, psychological and mental status. At each interval, a panel of examiners made a fresh assessment of the participants' cognitive status.

The study findings are published in the Jan. 25 online edition of the journal Neurology.

About 88 percent of study participants who developed mild cognitive impairment each year either continued with the condition or progressed to full-blown dementia. The others reverted to normal when tested later, but these were marginal cases, Roberts said.

Most of the participants were of European ancestry, and the researchers said the findings might be different for other ethnic groups.

Thies said he was surprised by the high percentage of people living in the community with cognitive impairment that caused them difficulties. "The issue is even broader than Alzheimer's disease, and the importance of finding medications for cognitive decline is even more important than we might have thought," he said.

Having the occasional "senior moment" -- forgetting an acquaintance's name, for instance -- does not mean you have mild cognitive impairment, Roberts explained.

It becomes more significant "if the individual notices this is happening more frequently, that it's affecting other aspects of their life," she said. "They're having more problems balancing their checkbook or remembering the names of people they know very well -- their own nieces or grandchildren or whatever."

Recognizing whether you're experiencing simple forgetfulness or a warning sign of impairment isn't always cut and dried, Thies said.

One day misplacing your car keys is a trivial, normal event, and the difference between that and the "first time it's a pathological event are absolutely indistinguishable," he said. "There is a moment where you can clearly have an overlap."

More information

To learn about memory loss, visit the U.S. National Institute on Aging.