Testosterone and prostate cancer don’t mix well. The hormone is fuel for prostate cancer cells, essentially making the cancer grow faster.
That’s where hormone therapy comes into play. According to prostatecanceruk.org, hormone therapy works in one of two ways – stopping your brain from signaling the body to produce more testosterone or altogether preventing the hormone from hitting the cancerous cells. Though it’s not a cure, hormone therapy can keep prostate cancer and its symptoms at bay.
One study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that men who take drugs to block testosterone if the cancer returns post surgery are more likely to survive.
“This is a big deal,” said Dr. Ian M. Thompson Jr., of the Christus Santa Rosa Health System in San Antonia, who wrote an editorial about the study. “There are so many things we do in prostate cancer that we don’t know if they make a big difference in survival. This is one of the things where now we can say for sure.”
But what happens if your body stops taking to the hormone therapy? It’s possible. Over time, the hormone therapy may become ineffective and the cancer will start to grow again. Don’t panic.
Here are some tips for handling your prostate cancer if hormone therapy is no longer working.
Combination and New Treatments
Usually, physicians will keep you on hormone therapy because it keeps the levels of testosterone in your body at a minimum. But, if the therapy isn’t working as well as it was previously, your doctor may suggest a combination treatment.
Anti-androgens are a type of hormone therapy that’s taken with your usual treatment to prevent the hormone from reaching the cancer cells.
Then, there are steroids, which can stop the production of testosterone in the adrenal glands while simultaneously treating symptom pains. There are new types of hormone therapies for advance prostate cancer, too, including Abiraterone and Enzalutamide – both for men whose cancer returned after chemotherapy or whose hormone therapy stopped before chemo.
Palliative Treatment
When the prostate cancer has advanced, this typically means it’s spread to the bones or other parts of the body, which can lead to more painful symptoms. To fight these specific pains, your physician may begin a palliative treatment such as prescribing a pain relief like ibuprofen or something much stronger, such as codeine or morphine.
There’s also the possibility of radiotherapy, if the cancer is spreading quickly. Radiotherapy can shrink the cancer that will, in turn, lessen the painful symptoms. Lastly, there are bisphosphonates, a drug that specifically treat bones problems that result from advanced prostate cancer.
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