Prostate cancer hormone therapy is a prostate cancer treatment that does not ablate the disease but shrinks the tumor, controls the growth, stops the spread, or all of the above. Prostate cancer hormone therapy is used as neoadjuvant therapy, a djuvant therapy, and monotherapy. Examples of hormone therapy treatments include surgical castration ( orchiectomy), chemical castration ( LHRH agonists, GnRH agonist, LHRH antagonist, GnRH antagonist), anti-androgens, estrogen or synthetic estrogen, or combined androgen blockade. Hormone therapy works on the grounds that testosterone which is produced by both the testicles and the adrenal glands fuels the growth of the cells of the prostate gland. If those prostate cells are malignant, the testosterone produced by the body actually propels the growth and extension of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer hormone therapy can for a time slow or stop the disease, but eventually, the cells will readjust and continue to grow. When the body stops responding, doctors will sometimes take patients off hormone therapy to incite a phenomenon called androgen withdrawal. Androgen withdrawal reintroduces hormone to the cells, and sometimes continues to slow the growth of the disease. After all type of hormone therapy ceases to be effective, the patient has hormone refractory prostate cancer and his next option usually is to proceed to chemotherapy.
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