ABSTRACT - Study finds daily dose of finasteride, drug sold by Merck under name Proscar, given to 4,300 health older men for seven years, reduced chances of getting prostate cancer by 25 percent; finds 6.4 percent of men who took drug got especially aggressive cases of disease, compared with 5.1 percent of men who took placebo; Dr Peter T Scardino, who wrote editorial about study for New England Journal of Medicine, says most men should not take drug to prevent disease; National Cancer Institute ended 10-year study early because results already conclusively showed drug's mixed effects (M) A drug that doctors had hoped might prevent prostate cancer has been found to be both more effective and potentially more dangerous than expected.

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