Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a non-malignant enlargement of the prostate gland, resulted from hyperplastic changes of prostate epithelial and stromal cells and it can be lead to lower urinary tract symptoms. Panicum dichotomiflorum (PD) is an annual grass distributing throughout the world. This study was aimed to evaluate the protective effect of PD extract on benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in a rat model of testosterone-induced BPH. BPH of rat was induced by daily subcutaneous (s.c) administration of testosterone propionate (TP) 3 mg/kg for four weeks. Simultaneously, rats were also administered daily oral gavage of PD (150 mg/kg), finasteride (10 mg/kg) as a positive control or vehicle. After final treatment, all animals were sacrificed humanely and prostates of each animal were isolated, weighed and collected for further analysis. Administration of PD to testosterone-induced BPH rats notably reduced relative prostate weight and concentrations of prostatic dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and serum testosterone. Epithelial thickness and expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and cyclin D1 were markedly suppressed by PD treatment. In addition, protein expressions of the B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) and cleaved caspase-3 were reduced PD-treated rats. PD decreased the levels of growth factors including transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-β1) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and protein expression of phospho-Akt. Further investigation showed that PD suppressed testosterone-induced prostatic inflammation and inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-8. Taken together, PD protects from BPH progression by enhancing apoptosis and inhibiting growth factor signaling and inflammatory cytokines, suggesting that PD has potential to protect from BPH progression accompanied by inflammation.