Effects of terazosin in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. A pilot study.

Several reports in the literature suggest that alpha-receptor blockade may have therapeutic value in treating the symptoms of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Terazosin (Heitrin, Hytrin) is a long acting, highly selective alpha 1-adrenergic blocking agent structurally similar to prazosin. The present study, which also can be regarded as a pilot study, was undertaken as part of a multicenter study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of terazosin in the treatment of patients with BPH. This article presents the results with terazosin in the first 15 patients who completed a dose-ranging, non-comparative single-blind study. These preliminary results confirm that terazosin significantly improved peak as well as mean urine flow rates and significantly reduced residual volume and significantly improved obstructive symptoms in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (p less than 0.001). The results of this study support the conclusion that terazosin is beneficial for treatment of symptoms in patients with BPH.