Cancer News, Treatment and Research

www.balancedhealthtoday.com www.balancedhealthtoday.com www.balancedhealthtoday.com Side Effects Of Prostate Cancer Androgen Hormone Therapy Antiandrogens are medications such as flutamide, bicalutamide, nilutamide, and cyproterone acetate which directly block the actions of testosterone and DHT within prostate cancer cells. They are a form of hormonal therapy which, in the treatment of prostate cancer, makes use of such medications (otherwise orchiectomy) to block prostate cancer cells from getting the dihydrotestosterone (DHT) hormone that is required for their growth and spread. This way these androgen treatments cause the tumor to stop growing and even shrink. Although they rarely cure the disease (since the cancers generally become resistant after a while), they are a good way to slow the disease down, especially when it is metastasizing. Prostate cancer hormone therapy is also called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) or androgen suppression therapy because of this. The androgens, produced mainly in the testicles, stimulate prostate cancer cells to grow; and as stated in the previous chapter, lowering their levels in the patient often causes the cancer shrink or grow more slowly. www.balancedhealthtoday.com www.balancedhealthtoday.com