Availability
Flutamide is marketed widely throughout the world, including in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Central and South America, East and Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East. Research
Prostate cancer
The combination of an estrogen and flutamide as a form of combined androgen blockade for the treatment of prostate cancer has been researched. Enlarged prostate
Flutamide has been studied in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH; enlarged prostate) in men in several clinical studies. It has been found to reduce prostate volume by about 25%, which is comparable to the reduction achieved with the 5α-reductase inhibitor finasteride. Unfortunately, it has been associated with side effects in these studies including gynecomastia and breast tenderness (in about 50% of patients), gastrointestinal disturbances such as nausea, diarrhea, and flatulence, and hepatotoxicity, although sexual function including libido and erectile potency were maintained. Breast cancer
Flutamide was studied for the treatment of advanced breast cancer in two phase II clinical trials but was found to be ineffective. Out of a total of 47 patients, only three short-term responses occurred. However, the patients in the studies were selected irrespective of AR, ER, PR, or HER2 status, which were all unknown. Psychiatric disorders
Flutamide has been studied in the treatment of bulimia nervosa in women.Flutamide was found to be effective in the treatment of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) in men with comorbid Tourettes syndrome in one small randomized controlled trial. Conversely, it was ineffective in patients with OCD in another study.
Most of the Catholic priests trained in Rome had seen malaria patients and were familiar with the shivering brought on by the febrile phase of the disease. The Jesuit Agostino Salumbrino (1564–1642), an apothecary by training who lived in Lima (now in present-day Peru), observed the Quechua using the bark of the cinchona tree to treat such shivering. While its effect in treating malaria (and malaria-induced shivering) was unrelated to its effect in controlling shivering from rigors, it was a successful medicine against malaria. At the first opportunity, Salumbrino sent a small quantity to Rome for testing as a malaria treatment. In the years that followed, cinchona bark, known as Jesuits bark or Peruvian bark, became one of the most valuable commodities shipped from Peru to Europe. When King Charles II was cured of malaria at the end of the 17th Century with quinine, it became popular in London. It remained the antimalarial drug of choice until the 1940s, when other drugs took over.The form of quinine most effective in treating malaria was found by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737. In 1820, French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou first isolated quinine from the bark of a tree in the genus Cinchona – probably Cinchona pubescens – and subsequently named the substance. The name was derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, quina or quina-quina, which means "bark of bark" or "holy bark".