You Have Just Diagnosed Your Patient with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

Multiple Choice

You have just diagnosed your patient with benign prostatic hyperplasia. He has an AUA Symptom Index score of 18. You discuss starting pharmacotherapy with your patient and he states that he has heard that saw palmetto is a safe and effective wonder-drug from his herbalist friend and so he wants to treat his symptoms with saw palmetto. Your evidence-based therapeutic response would be:

A) Encourage the patient to follow his herbalist friend's recommendations because many phytotherapeutic agents have been proven to be effective in reducing symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia.
B) Discuss with the patient that although many phytotherapeutic agents such as saw palmetto, African prune tree extract, and rye pollen are on the market, reliable research to date has not demonstrated any of them to be effective in relieving the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia.
C) Advise the patient that phytotherapeutics and dietary supplements should never be considered when addressing a real medical problem.
D) Give the patient a prescription for doxazosin 1mg by mouth every day at bedtime and tell him to "just take the medication."