What You Should Know About Prostate Hormone Therapy
Chemotherapy is the widely form of therapy for recovering cancer patients. Those who have death in the face and lived on to tell the tale once again walk the earth with a story to tell but not without a price. These people endure having to go through the process of chemotherapy to buy back even half of their former selves. But chemotherapy is not the only way to help cure a cancer patients. For prostate cancer survivors, prostate hormone therapy is another way get back to the grind.
Prostate hormone therapy or simply hormonal therapy uses medicines, injections or surgery to inhibit prostate cancer cells from getting into contact with dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a hormone produced in the prostate gland and very important requirement for the growth and the spread of prostate cancer cells. Blocking DHT from getting into contact with the prostate often causes cancer cells to stop growing and eventually shrink. However, Prostate hormone therapy rarely cures prostate cancer completely because cancers which initially respond to hormonal therapy typically become resistant to it after one to two years of constant contact. Prostate hormone therapy is usually used when cancer has just started spreading from the prostate. It may also be administered to men undergoing surgery or radiation therapy to help prevent the early metastases of their cancer.
Prostate hormone therapy for prostate cancer specifically targets the highways the body uses to make DHT hormone . It's like a loop involving the hypothalamus, the testicles, and the prostate, adrenal, and pituitary glands controls the amount of DHT. The loop is like a feedback echo where one sound echoes on and on until it reaches the source again. First, low blood levels of DHT stimulate the hypothalamus to secrete a gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH). GnRH then makes the pituitary gland to make luteinizing hormone (LH), and LH makes the testicles to secrete testosterone. Finally, testosterone from the testicles and dehydroepiandrosterone from the adrenal glands stimulate the prostate to produce more DHT. Prostate hormone therapy can decrease levels of DHT by blocking this pathway at any point like a police roadblock.
There are several forms of Prostate hormone therapy:
1. Orchiectomy is surgery involving the removal of the testicles. Testicles produce most of the body's testosterone, after orchiectomy the testosterone level in the body drops. Due to this the prostate gland lacks the testosterone stimuli to produce DHT and also it does not have enough testosterone in the blood to transform into DHT.
2. Antiandrogens are medicines like flutamide, bicalutamide, nilutamide, and cyproterone acetate that directly puts a roadblock in the actions of testosterone and DHT within prostate cancer cells.
3. Other medications that block the production of androgens such as DHEA would include ketoconazole and aminoglutethimide. The use of this combined method is called total androgen blockade (TAB).
GnRH action interruption, GnRH can be blocked in one of two ways. GnRH antagonists limits the production of LH directly, while GnRH antagonists suppress LH through the process of deregulation after a stimulation effect. Abarelix is an example of a GnRH antagonist, while the GnRH agonists include goserelin, leuprolide, buserelin, and triptorelin. Initially, GnRH agonists increase the production of LH.
However, because the constant supply of the medication does not match the body's natural production rhythm, production of both LH and GnRH decreases after a few weeks. These are just some of the examples of prostate hormone therapy.
Prostate Tip #1
As men age, they should think about prostate problem prevention since men in their fifties have a higher risk of developing an enlarged prostate or even cancer. It takes less money to prevent a disease from happening rather than treating it.
Prostate Tip #2
It will be in your best interests to get a prostate screening annually from your physician once you reach age 45 to determine if you have any problems with your prostate. This will also help your physician detect any cancer while it is still in its early stages.