Sawaya
comments to HairlossSucks Users on Dutasteride
July 13, 2001
Recently there has been some
active debate in our Discussion Forum regarding the intentions
behind the many comments Dr. Marty Sawaya made on several
occasions in regards to Dutasteride's performance in clinical trials.
The comments found both on The Bald Truth Radio
Show, news articles, and Video Webcasts, initiated quite a bit
of excitement as people awaited the results of the first set
of Trials. |
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Dr. Sawaya referred to Dutasteride's
performance as "amazing", and spoke highly of it as the
next great step forward in hair loss treatments. As
is common with human nature, the anticipation continued to rise as the
weeks leading up to release went by. In
discussion forums across many sites, people began referring to
Dutasteride as the potential Cure to hair loss, and even misquoted
Sawaya as having said this herself. In each new interview that
came out, Sawaya stayed consistent with her assessment of the
results, and even added a new phrase to fuel the fire, referring to
its performance as "Astounding". When
the 6
month Trial Results finally came out, people who
considered Propecia and Rogaine the only viable treatments on the
market
were excited and relieved. They recognized Dutasteride as a newer and better alternative,
and for that alone, they were thankful. Dutasteride outperformed both Propecia and Rogaine
significantly. However, those who had set their expectations
for a cure to hair loss were sourly disappointed.
Why?
Dutasteride outperformed Propecia by
nearly 50% after 6 months. Yet still, many people were gravely
disappointed and frustrated. They began commenting that
Dutasteride wasn't worth all the hype. Many referred back to Sawaya's comments and
demanded to know why
she spoke so highly of the treatment. For nearly 5 months
Sawaya remained silent on the issue.
The recurring question that we kept
seeing was: Why did Dr. Sawaya feel
Dutasteride performed so well?
Some who compare the images above can
see very plainly why she said this. Others see them and are disappointed. We decided to let Dr. Sawaya speak
for herself. We had one of our users, Bryan
Shelton, pose a single question to Sawaya in regards
to her comments on the Dutasteride Trials. Below is that
question, and Sawaya's reply.
Bryan's Question: Dr.
Sawaya -
There has been a lot of interest in the drug Dutasteride among the readers of various Web sites and newsgroups devoted to hairloss. A great deal of this has been a result of very favorable comments that you've made about it on Spencer Kobren's radio show, using such words as 'amazing' in reference to the drug's hair-regrowth performance. I'm aware that you've signed a non-disclosure agreement with Glaxo, so you can't divulge any hard data about its performance; however, the hair-counts that were obtained for both Dutasteride and Finasteride during the six-month phase 2 trial have already been made public, and we now know that the Dutasteride hair-count was only about 50% better than what was obtained with Finasteride, the comparison drug.
The reason I'm writing you is to say that a great many of us are rather disappointed in these results. My question is whether you could comment further on what motivated your enthusiasm for this drug in light of the hair-counts being only a little better than Finasteride? Was there more to the study that isn't public yet, which justified this
enthusiasm?
Bryan Shelton
Dr.
Sawaya's Reply
"It may be that peoples expectations are a bit too high, but
Dutasteride's results were the "best" that has come to date, and even getting 50% hair counts better than
Finasteride is great. Just think of the fact that this was only at 6
months.
Many expect that numbers will
be even higher as the study continues to 12 months, 2 years
etc. It's possible that over 50% of men will be getting moderate to dense
regrowth on Dutasteride, compared to the less than 25% of men who experience these results with
Finasteride.
People reviewing the 6 month data are not considering that this was just a short pilot study and that longer term studies would have yielded even better
results. They are not considering the details."
Dr. Marty Sawaya |
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