Prostate Cancer Treatment – Estrogen Therapy: Estrogen Patches

One of the earliest treatments that may be considered for a prostate cancer patient is hormonal therapy, and it is also one of the most effective. It does have a limitation of not actually being able to cure the carcinoma, but hormonal therapy (or hormone treatment) is extremely helpful in slowing the progression or the disease or even stopping its growth. In several intervening instances, hormonal treatment is in point of fact employed to cause the cancer tumors to shrink so that the patient can be operated upon or radiation therapy can be applied.

Hormone treatment is a helpful technique for managing certain cancers because several of them, especially the cancers of the male and female reproductive systems, depend heavily on gender specific sex hormones to breed and propagate. By denying the tumors the critical hormones that are required to fuel their growth, physicians are able to starve the melanomas such that they lose momentum and are curtailed. Then other therapies may be employed to do away with them.

There are two ways in which hormonal therapy can be used manage prostate cancer. One way is by actually carrying out a surgery to extract the gland in the body that produces the implicated hormone, which would be the adrenal gland in the male system that secretes testosterone and dihydorepiandrosterone. The second approach is to find an alternative means to stop or counter the production of these hormones. The use of estrogen patches for prostate cancer treatment is one such alternative approach.

Estrogen therapy for prostate cancer treatment usually uses any of the group of female sex hormones that stimulate secondary female sex characteristics and control growth of the lining of the uterus during the first part of the menstrual cycle (estrone, ethinyl estradiol, and estriol, all produced primarily in the ovaries) in the male body to counter the effect or production of adrenal endocrines to arrest the growth of prostate tumors either in oral form or in form of the contraceptive patch. Synthetic forms of these estrogens also exist, namely Stilbestrol and ethinyl estradiol, five and ten times as potent as estrone, and used to treat advanced and disseminated cancer of the prostate gland in men.

Estradiol is a specific estrogen that has found great use in this regard. Beyond merely relieving the discomforts of menopause, it also helps in treating breast and prostate cancer. The estradiol contraceptive patch is a small, plastic skin patch that women usually use to release low doses of female sex hormones into their system to prevent pregnancy. But more than that, it also helps to prevent the secretion of the adrenal hormones in the male reproductive system, so that the cancers of the prostate can be starved as required.

The application of this medication should however never be attempted without the guide of a certified doctor because they can advice best what doses of the patch is required to limit the side effects. You should be advised that hormonal treatment doesn’t exactly cure prostate cancer; it merely makes it easier to be treated by other therapies like surgery and radiation.

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.

« Previous Page — Next Page »