Anti Depressants Drugs To Treat and Even Cure Prostate Cancer

If you have just being diagnosed with the cancer of the prostate, this article provides you with some helpful information that will make you smile. Yes, the condition is no longer a killer disease as most people think. There are now various ways to effectively treat it, especially when discovered in good time. This article looks at some of the anti-depressant drugs that can be used to treat the condition.

You see, it’s worth repeating that this type of cancer can be effectively treated and even cured using various ways. One of the ways includes the use of anti-depressant drugs. These drugs are found to be effective medication against prostate cancer. Anti-depressant are the drugs used for the treatment of depressions. Since prostate cancer causes hot flashes in hormone therapy, anti-depressants can be helpful.

One of the anti-depressant drugs is called celexa. It has a generic name of citopram. The celexa or citopram belongs to the anti-depressants class called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). The celexa is said to be effective in the condition.

A recent study undertaken by the sample of 18 patients of prostate cancer within 5 weeks shows that the compound called Paxil or paroxetine, which is present in celexa, is responsible for reducing the hot flashes cause by hormone therapy of prostate cancer.  This shows that celexa can be a solution to this type of cancer, if used properly.

Megace can also be used to treat prostate cancer. Most a times, patients undergoing hormone treatment take megace with Lupron or Zoladex and this help to eradicate prostate cancer to a certain degree. The prove shows that megace medication is effective. However, a specific study indicates that some patients who used this medication still develop cancer cells instead of having the cells destroyed. Thus, it can be said that megace medication works in some people while in some it doesn’t work. So, if you are taking megace, make sure it works in your body system to avoid progressive cancer cell development.

Anti- depressants drugs can indeed help with prostate cancer. You can use celexa or megace medication to deal with the cancerous-cells in your prostate. However, you should consult your doctor before going for any medication. No matter what you have read here or anywhere, it’s a good idea to confirm things with your doctor before you decide on what to do. Most of what you read online should serve as informational materials that must be confirmed with your doctor before taking action upon them, especially when it comes to your health.

Finasteride And Flutamide In Prostate Cancer Treatment

Finasteride in the United States is marketed under a variety of names – Proscar, Propecia, Fincar, Finpecia, Finax, Finast, Finara, Finalo, Prosteride, Gefina, Appecia, Finasterid IVAX, and Finasterid Alternova. It is a synthetic antiandrogen that acts by inhibiting type II 5-alpha reductase, the enzyme that aids in the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT is a hormone of the male reproductive system that has been implicated as a factor which promotes the progression of prostate cancer.

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.

Cancer Chemotherapy Prostate – A good Treatment Option

Chemotherapy is generally one of the better known treatments for most forms of cancer. It is the administration of specifically tailored drugs to a cancer sufferer with the intention of the drugs getting into the bloodstream and killing off the cancer cells that are in the body.

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.

« Previous Page — Next Page »