New Treatments – Hormone Therapy
Hormone therapy is for prostate cancer a new treatment when compared to the other major forms of treatment for cancer. This new prostate treatment involves dramatically decreasing the concentration of testosterone in the body so as to slow down or stop the growth of prostate cancer for a period of time. Testosterone binds with prostate gland cells from puberty onward and fuels them to continuously grow. Unfortunately testosterone isn’t specific with regards to which cells in the prostate it binds to and so it also binds to cancerous cells, which ultimately leads to them growing and spreading. By removing testosterone from the body there is no longer the stimulus to make the cancer cells grow and so the progression of the tumour slows down or stops completely. 90% of the body’s testosterone is produced by the testes. A section of the brain called the hypothalamus constantly monitors the levels of testosterone in the circulating blood and if it detects a drop in concentration it sends a message to the pituitary gland (also in the brain) which in turn stimulates the testes to produce more testosterone. Hormone therapy acts to break this cycle in one of four different ways. 1. Castration CastrationCastration is a radical method to treat prostate cancer however a number of men do opt to undergo the procedure. It involves an orchiectomy (removal of the testes) and the use of antagonists and agonists that bloke the message cycle in the brain. This is so that the adrenal glands, which produce the other 10% of the body’s testosterone, don’t become over stimulated to produce more testosterone. Castration decreases the testosterone concentration in the blood by 90-95%. Oestrogen substitutionThe brain is incapable of distinguishing testosterone from oestrogen, the female sex hormone. This means that when synthetic oestrogen is taken by a male the brain thinks that it is testosterone and so monitors the supposed testosterone level as continually high, thus the message isn’t sent to the testes to produce any more. Unfortunately synthetic oestrogen has been reported to cause severe cardiovascular problems when used to treat prostate cancer and so hormone prostate treatment using oestrogen is very rarely used. Anti-androgensAnti-androgens interact with androgen receptors on all types of prostate cells, including cancerous cells. This means that the binding sites for testosterone are no longer available and the hormone can’t stimulate cell growth. Testosterone continues to circulate in the blood stream though; it just can’t bind with its target. Combined androgen blockadeThis combines the method of castration with the use of anti-androgens so that the overall amount of testosterone produced decreases by 90% and the 10% that is left circulating can no longer interact with any of the cells of the prostate gland. Hormone therapy can be used either before other forms of treatment in a hope that it will shrink large tumours to a manageable size, during the course of other treatments and a ‘helper’ therapy or after the primary method of treatment has failed. Unfortunately, as with many of the other treatments for cancer, hormone prostate treatment has a number of adverse side effects that occur because of the huge change in body hormone levels. Some people naturally adjust to the new therapy over a period of time however other continue to suffer from a number of unpleasant side effects for the duration of their treatment. Side effects commonly encountered with this form of cancer treatment include: • Nausea Admittedly these side effects are unpleasant however when compared to the ill effects that a man would suffer should he not treat his prostate cancer then they really don’t seem too bad. |
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