Finasteride is used both to treat BPH – benign prostatic hyperplasia ? (in low doses), and for intervention with prostate cancer in higher doses. In May 2008, it was confirmed by a certain study that finasteride actually reduces the rate of occurrence of prostate cancer by as much as 30%. Adding that to the fact that it is also used in the treatment of male pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia), one can suddenly see that the product has many health benefits.

Flutamide is also an antiandrogen, which is nonsteroidal in action and can be administered orally. It is a drug that is used to treat prostate cancer by competing with testosterone and DHT for binding to androgen receptors in the prostate gland. In this manner, flutamide prevents the two hormones from stimulating prostate cancer cells to grow, thence causing the carcinoma to shrink. Flutamide does have side effects that have resulted in improvements being made on the drug and it being rereleased as bicalutamide, due to a better side-effect profile.

When an experiment was carried out to determine which had better merits between a combined low-dose flutamide and finasteride therapy for recurrent prostate cancer, and a simple low-dose flutamide monotherapy, it was discovered that the “therapeutic value of low-dose flutamide alone or combined with finasteride as first-line agents in a possible graduated approach for treating PSA-only recurrent prostate cancer.”

Stated simply, this translates into the fact that there were no clear results observed. In any case, this was a comparative analysis of two phase II trials of the therapeutic concept with the intention of a long-term follow-up. There were some “unwanted metabolic effects” that were observed during the tests which are generally associated with traditional hormonal agents, but which also determined that phase III trials comparing both regimens with current therapies will be warranted.

The drugs work, but using them together has not been proven yet to be a better therapeutic approach than using then individually.

One of the biggest merits of chemotherapy is that it does not have to be restricted to one specific area of the patient’s body. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to administer the drugs that way. The medicines have to travel the extent of the patient’s body, killing every rapidly dividing cell in its path. This makes chemotherapy ideal for the treatment of metastatic cancers that are no longer situated at their organs of origin.

In the treatment of prostate cancer though, this big quality might be considered something of a handicap because this malignancy of the cells of the prostate gland is essentially a slow growing adenocarcinoma, in which the cells, although mutating and dividing more rapidly than they should, they are not too distinct from normal cells themselves. This is partly why there are no early symptoms for prostate type of cancer, but this is also why chemotherapy may not be applied in the early stages of the disease.

In prostate cancer treatment then, chemo is relegated to some kind of salvage therapy in which intervention is brought in when the cancerous cells have hit the patient’s bloodstream and started to metastasize to other parts of the body. Metastatic prostate carcinoma hits the lymphatic system first, causing swelling of the lymph nodes; and then it hits the pelvis, causing excruciating bone pain; and then it moves further out to the bones of the spinal column, the femur, the ribs, and maybe even the skull. But when that happens, chemotherapy can come to the rescue.

There is another problem here: late stage or advanced prostate cancer of this nature is not really considered be a curable condition, which is why this type of chemo is usually some kind of palliative measure, aimed more at extending the life of the patient and relieving the symptoms of metastatic disease. Even though chemo has the potential to cure the disease, and actually may do so in some extreme cases, doctors are never optimistic about such, and they make it clear in their weak prognosis.

Chemotherapy does have its side effects too, which result from the fact that the treatment generally affects rapidly dividing cells in the body. That is why several sufferers of prostate kind of cancer have to endure hair loss as well as a number of other symptoms when they undergo chemotherapy. But it is a small price to pay if the treatment can add another couple of lives for the patient to live.

Research has established that prostate cancer cells (even though their actual cause is not known or properly understood) depend in a large way on the male androgens to grow, essentially testosterone, dihydroepiandrosterone, and dihydrosterone (DHT). As such, hormone therapy, which is also referred to as androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), or androgen suppression therapy (AST) is usually administered to men with the goal of reducing levels of the male hormones (androgens) in the body. Lowering these androgen levels has been found in many studies to make prostate cancer cells/tumors shrink or grow a lot more slowly.

It is an unfortunate fact that hormone therapy does not cure this disease because cancers that initially respond to the treatment tend to become resistant after one to two years. However, hormonal therapy can be used when cancer has spread from the prostate or for men undergoing radiation therapy or surgery to help prevent a relapse of the condition.

Also, if a patient is not able to have surgery or radiation, or if it is determined that the patient cannot be cured due to metastasis; or if the prostate malignancy remains or comes back after treatment with surgery or radiation therapy , hormone treatments are as close to ideal. Hormonal therapy can also be employed to try and shrink the cancer to make other treatments more effective

A surgical castration, or orchiectomy, is a hormone treatment operation to remove the testicles that produce testosterone in men, to make the hormone unavailable for prostate cancer growth and metastasis. It usually makes most prostate kind of cancers stop growing or shrink for a time. It may cause reduced or absent libido (sexual desire) and impotence, hot flashes, growth of breast tissue, osteoporosis, and a few other side effects, but the side effects can be prevented or treated.

The use to Luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) analogs costs cost more than orcheictomy, but most men choose it because of the lesser invasiveness it offers. It lowers testosterone levels by lowering the levels of androgens made by the testicles; and it also causes hot flashes and osteoporosis, but anti-androgens for a few weeks when starting treatment with LHRH analogs can be a great deal of help.

Firstly, it is still pretty alarming to know the rate at which people die of prostate cancer. This type of cancer is among the top killers of all cancer types that affect men. Yes, recent statistics have revealed prostate type of cancer as the second killer of men, right after skin cancer. In America, African-American men have the highest number of cases diagnosed. Since the rate of deaths from prostate cancer patients has become alarming, medical researches have continued in various studies to develop more effective medications for this disease.

So far, the best treatments and medical procedures that have been developed in fighting prostate cancer are: radical prostatectomy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, cryotherapy, and Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADP), etc. These treatments have succeeded somewhat in providing relief and inhibit cancer growth in the victims. However, there are limitations to these treatments and this has led researchers to look for alternative medicines for fighting prostate cancer. Alternative Medicines are medications in the form of herbal supplements, nutritional supplements, exercises, physical therapies etc. Hence, they are procedures that do not follow the conventional method of treating prostate problems. Below are two very important reasons why alternative medicines are recommended:

1. The major reason why most research efforts are now channeled to adopt alternative prostate cancer medicine is because of the side effects of conventional or orthodox medicines. Undergoing treatment the conventional way brings about serious side effects, which might be dangerous than the cancer itself. Erectile dysfunction and even complete impotence are two such side effects. But it is agreed by experts in the alternative medicine debate that alternative treatments and medicines don’t have such side effects.

2. Alternative medicines are needed in fighting prostate cancer because they help the body to build up nutrients and boost the immune system. Some herbal and nutritional supplements assist the body to develop a stronger immune system, which will fight off any illness in the body. Moreover, the procedure of taking alternative medicine is simple and might save you the rigors of undergoing the procedures like prostatectomy, which is a more invasive approach.

So, alternative medicines are very effective in fighting prostate cancer because they have minimal side effects and help the body to build up the immune system, among other important reasons. But of course, no matter how wonderful the things are that you have heard about alternative solutions and even the many so-called wonder herbs that cure prostate cancer, you should thread with caution. It’s best to seek your doctor’s advice and guidance before using any of these so-called alternative herbal prostate cancer solutions.

To read specifically about Laser treatment for enlarged prostate, natural treatment for enlarged prostate or even microwave treatment of enlarged prostate, see the other “related articles” on this site for more information. With the 1,000+ articles on this website about prostate cancer, we are proud to say we have virtually every important topic and subject covered as very well written and highly informative and educative prostate cancer articles!

Zoladex is a prostate cancer hormonal treatment drug that is employed as a super agonist in the treatment of primary prostate cancer tumors, preferably in the early stages of the disease. It is comprised of a chemical substance known as goserelin acetate, and otherwise referred to as AstraZeneca in parts of the United States and in other developed countries of the West in which prostate cancer is highly incident and treatment techniques are relatively advanced.

Zoladex is injectable, a gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), also known as a lutenizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist, used to suppress production of the male sex hormone testosterone in the treatment of the disease. Zoladex has also found quite some degree of use in breast cancer treatment because it limits the production of the female sex hormone estrogen.

Cancer cells, it has been found, tend to feed on sex hormones in the human body, especially estrogen for breast cancer, and testosterone for prostate cancer. It is found that as long as this hormone is in full swing in the human body, so is the tumor, and the patient is thus at higher risk of developing metastatic prostate cancer, a problematic stage of the disorder.

This is the concept on which hormonal prostate cancer treatment is based, to shut down the body’s production of testosterone and starve the tumors to death, effectively stopping them from spreading and causing existing tumors to shrink. Once they have shrunk, they may be observed in that manner so as not to risk the potential complications of prostate surgery, or they could be removed by either that surgery, or by radiation therapy.

Using Zoladex to treat prostate cancer is by no means a new thing in the management of the cancerous disease. As a super agonist of the gonadotropin-releasing or the luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (GnRH or LHRH), it may initially result in increased testosterone secretion, but shortly after, inhibit testosterone manufacture is inhibited and the prostate tumors shrink.

This prostate cancer hormone Zoladex drug has to be acquired in the United States only with a prescription from a licensed healthcare professional, and its pack comes with a syringe applicator that is equipped with a protective sleeve, or SafeSystem, to reduce and prevent needlestick injuries to the administering physician.

The choice to administer this treatment is a tough one for the doctor in charge of treating the prostate cancer patient because this kind of hormonal treatment rarely ever completely ‘cures’ the tumor. It shrinks it, and if it is continued the tumor remains shrunk for the greater part of eighteen months or two year. After this, the malignancy becomes resistant to the hormone treatment and could resume growth.

Knowing this, you should discuss what options are best for you to complete your treatment once you have started on Zolodex. It could be the doctor really believes that the cancer will go into complete remission; but it could also be the relapsing type, in which case you might need that surgery or radiotherapy.

Prostate cancer immune therapy is pretty much done in the same as way as any other kind of immune therapy, save in the part of the drugs that are administered ? the drugs boost your body’s immune system to fight the cancers off by itself. It relies on several antibodies, which are all naturally occurring proteins that are dedicated to defending your body against invasion by foreign substances. In one kind of prostate cancer immunotherapy, the antibodies are used to attack the tumor cells directly; in another kind, the antibodies simply deliver toxic agents like radioactive substances or drugs, to selectively target and harm malignant prostate cancer cells.

In certain cases, specialized monoclonal antibodies are produced scientifically in a laboratory and used to fight off the cancer through application to your body; and in certain other cases of immune therapy, interferon is applied, which is a naturally and synthetically produced protein that fights all kinds of disease-causing agents in the body. Interferon is administered to slow the growth of the prostate tumor cells in patients to prevent metastasis, and then it stimulates the immune system to attack them. And a third form of immune system therapy uses interleukin-2 to stimulate some kind of immune cell which attacks cancerous tissue. Interleukin-2 is a naturally occurring immune system chemical that that can be trusted in this regard.

A fourth form of immunotherapy employs colony stimulating factors to help and regulate the production of white blood cells in your body to enable your body better combat the disease, and that is not all. As earlier stated, immunotherapy is not yet a perfected technique and a lot of research and study is still ongoing concerning its application in the treatment of prostate cancer patients.

It is understood how the world can be impatient to get the ‘all-clear’ on this treatment approach, but that would be jumping the gun if all is not well with research results. What’s to say someone will not be making a critical error very soon that could hurt somebody; what’s to say that there aren’t some side effects of the treatment that aren’t yet known? What is good is worth waiting for; in the time being, talk to your doc and let him find you the best known treatment for your prostate cancer.

Surgery ? There are various types of surgeries used to remedy prostate cancer, otherwise known as prostatectomies, which include radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP), radical perineal prostatectomy (RPP), laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP), robotic assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP), transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP), orchiectomy, and cryosurgery.

Radiation therapy ? This technique attacks the cancerous tumors of prostate carcinoma with ionizing radiation, which kills them or at least stops their progression. There are mainly two types of radiation treatment that are used when dealing with prostate cancer. One is internal radiotherapy, also known as brachytherapy, which involves placing tiny radioactive seeds in the prostate gland using small incisions that leave no evidence of scaring once they are healed; the second is external radiation therapy, in which the radiation is applied from outside the body using a linear accelerator.

Hormone treatment ? Also known as hormonal therapy, this procedure involves killing mutant prostate cancer cells by depriving them of the hormones that they often use as fuels to propagate and metastasize. In one method of the procedure, the gland or organ secreting the hormones is surgically extracted from the body, in another pills and drugs are given that inhibit the patient’s production of the said endocrine chemicals. Consequently the tumor begins to shrink and die.

Chemotherapy ? This remedy when applied to prostate cancer directly attacks the tumors and kills them with the aid of chemotherapeutic drugs administered in pretty much the same way that the first form of hormone treatment is done.

Most of these treatments work best for early stage prostate cancer, but as the disease metastasizes through the body, it becomes more resistant and therapies often have to be merged or combined for best results. That is why there is still ongoing research for new therapies for metastatic prostate cancer and even alternative therapies for prostate cancer, in the bid to eventually cure the disease.

One such procedure is an improvement on the application of chemotherapy ? improved pills; another is immunotherapy, which bolsters the body’s immune system to combat prostate cancer cells. A third is cryosurgery, listed above, and generating great waves in the medical community. However, this technique is only applicable for early stage prostate cancer.

That was close to sixty years ago, and I know you must have heard about the facility yourself by now, as a red blooded American. If there is one thing I know about Americans and grant givers, they don’t give money to projects that they have little or no confidence in; and this facility has more than proved its worth over the past half century. About the same time as the donations were made, several researchers began to discover a lot of new truths in cancer treatment.

It was found that genetic material contained in some viruses could trigger a cancerous condition, and by 1975, American virologists J. Michael Bishop and Harold Eliot Varmus showed that the viral oncogene ? a cancer-promoting bit of genetic material ? was actually a copy of normal genetic material within the host cell, championing the realization that genes played a great role as causal ingredients for prostate cancer. Somehow, very long ago, this bit of hereditary material involved in the regulation of cell growth had been slightly altered and integrated into the genetic code of the virus.

Naturally, a lot of research has ensued in the medical community, based on this information realized; and the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine was not to be left behind. Soon after, they found the encoded protein that influenced prostate cancer. It was Raymond L. Erikson and his colleagues that provided this huge step in the understanding that the world has for treatment of all kinds of cancer today, and for several researches that are still ongoing at this time.

Today, if you are looking to find the proper treatment for your prostate cancer, it gets no better than the University of Colorado Hospital because of all the doctors and equipment, and knowhow that they posses. Even though there remain many unanswered questions on the disease, specifically the causes and cures, better and better ways are being realized to treat and even cure the disease.

That aside, improved diagnostic processes are surfacing all the time: DRE and PSA tests are still in force, but because of their invasiveness, non invasive methods of prostate tumor detection like the application of adenoviruses modified to transfect tumor cells with harmless yet distinct genes; molecular PCA3 tests; a new blood test for early prostate cancer antigen-2 (EPCA-2); and prostate mapping, a method of diagnosis which may be accurate in determining the precise location and aggressiveness of cancer, are all being considered in their test phases.

If you want to read specifically about castle rock Colorado prostate cancer or prostate cancer Colorado Springs, there are other specific articles in the “related articles” section.

The objective of radiotherapy, as with all other forms of prostate cancer treatment, is to kill the mutant prostate cancer cells, this time making use of ionizing radiation. The ionizing radiation, which could be in form of gamma rays or x-rays, has to be absorbed into the patient’s tissue, to damage the DNA in the cancer cells that have the increased probability of apoptosis. The damage done to the cancer cells also happens in some degree to normal prostate cells, but whereas the normal cells are able to repair the radiation damage, the cancerous cancer cells are not, which is how and why radiation therapy works.

There are essentially two different kinds of radiation therapy that are used especially in the treatment of prostate cancer treatment. They are external beam radiation therapy and internal radiotherapy, also known as prostate brachytherapy.

External beam radiation therapy for prostate cancer is delivered by a linear accelerator, producing high-energy x-ray beams that are directed towards the prostate. Because of the narrowness and sensitivity of the region, the radiologist may have to adjust the radiation beam to conform with the shape of the tumor to allow for higher doses to be given to the prostate and the surrounding seminal vesicles with less damage to the bladder and rectum. This is done by a technique called the Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy or IMRT. The procedure often takes weeks to complete while the patient has to maintain daily visits to a radiation therapy center. However, these newer forms of contemporary radiation therapy (the IMRT) tend to be quicker and to have fewer side effects.

Brachytherapy, or internal radiation treatment has today become a popular prostate cancer treatment choice for patients who have low risk features of the disease. It can also be done for visiting patients, and it tends to result in impressive ten-year prognoses for the sufferer, while also affording relatively low morbidity. In this process, the permanent implantation of about a hundred 100 small “seeds” of radioactive material like iodine-125 or palladium-103, through the skin of the perineum directly into the tumor is effected by a simple needle under spinal or general anesthetic. The lower-energy x-rays emitted by the seeds travel only a short distance, but they kill the cancers. Eventually they become inert, although they remain in the prostate permanently.

There is some risk of radiation sickness to the patient, but that is considered minor. Also other side effects like diarrhea and radiation proctitis, impotence and incontinence are considered manageable, especially since they are largely temporary. The side effects often fade with time.

Stages III and IV of prostate cancer advancement are a problem that even the doctors are never in a hurry to get to. At this point, the problem is chiefly that the mutated prostate gland cells have spread all through your body to the bones of your back, pelvis and hips, thigh, and ribs. Certainly, you could be feeling symptoms of lymphoma as well, as the carcinoma pervades and degrades your lymph nodes too. As a last ditch effort, some doctors will recommend that you allow yourself to be subject to any complex combination of treatments which would likely include prostatectomy, hormonal therapy, and certainly some form of radiation therapy.

Advanced stage prostate cancer is often referred to also as hormone-refractory metastatic. This implies that the disease has spread to several areas of your body and it is difficult to catch at best, and also that the cancerous tumors are now stubborn, aggressive, rebellious, and uncontrollable by any form of hormone action. At some stage, they could have used hormonal therapy to starve the cancers to death, but now it’s too late. Now, palliative care is probably your best option, in which the doctors focus not on healing or curing your condition, but on extending your life and relieving you of the symptoms of the metastatic disease.

There are some cases in which doctors are still able to administer chemotherapy for this type of suffering. However, you should know that this hormone-refractory metastatic prostate cancer is not particularly considered to be effectively treatable, and the chemo is mostly only to slow disease progression and postpone symptoms. Often the physician combines a certain drug docetaxel with a corticosteroid like prednisone. Also, they may apply some zoledronic acid to delay any skeletal complications that may surface, like fractures and such.

Another drug, Abiraterone Acetate, has been shown to deliver some promise in treating this kind of advance stage prostate cancer, causing a dramatic reduction in prostate specific androgen levels. Chemotherapy for hormonal refractory prostate cancer will produce some of the needed relief? but in the minds of the doctors, only long enough for the patient to pass on.