Post-Finasteride Syndrome
Medsafe (New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority)
Prescriber Update 37(1): 8–9 (medsafe.govt.nz)2016-03
Summary (paraphrased)
New Zealand's regulator published one of the earliest official clinical briefings to use the term "post-finasteride syndrome" outright. It states that PFS can occur in some men who took finasteride and that sexual, physical, and mental/neurological symptoms often persist after stopping. It tabulates reported symptoms across those three domains, notes the syndrome was newly listed in NIH's rare-diseases database, warns that suicidal ideation and depression can appear after stopping treatment, and reports 10 New Zealand CARM reports linking finasteride to at least one listed symptom, with only three patients recovered at the time of report.
Why it’s in the corpus
One of the first regulators anywhere to publish a named-PFS prescriber briefing — a 2016 anchor for the regulatory timeline, with a rare official symptom table and national case counts.
Related records
- Peer-reviewed paper
Enduring sexual dysfunction after treatment with antidepressants, 5α-reductase inhibitors and isotretinoin: 300 cases
Healy, David; Le Noury, Joanna; Mangin, Dee · International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine · 29(3-4):125-134
Drawing on reports submitted to the RxISK.org adverse-event site, the authors assembled 300 cases of persistent sexual difficulty from 37 countries after treatment with serotonin reuptake inhibiting antidepressants, finasteride-type drugs, or isotretinoin…
CROSS-0012018PFSPSSDPRSDCore corpus - Peer-reviewed paper
Failing Public Health Again? Analytical Review of Depression and Suicidality From Finasteride
Mayer Brezis · The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry · 86(4):25nr15862
A narrative review by Mayer Brezis (Braun School of Public Health, Hadassah-Hebrew University) arguing that finasteride can cause depression, anxiety and suicidality, including after it is stopped, and analysing why recognition took two decades. Concerns…
CUR-0022025-09-22PFSCurator additions