Is the Safety of Finasteride Correlated With Its Route of Administration: Topical Versus Oral? A Pharmacovigilance Study With Data From the United States Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System

Signals for PFS-like AEs were detected with topical finasteride, but were less frequent than with oral finasteride. The high prevalence of these AEs in the general population and the influence of confounding factors, such as psychological stress or nocebo effects, combined with the lack of genotyping, hormonal assessments, or family history data in most reports, suggest caution in attributing causality to finasteride. Topical finasteride may pose a lower risk, but robust evidence is needed to clarify its safety profile.