Prostate Cancer Treatment
Prostate Cancer Treatment For Those With Recurrent Prostate Cancer
Being diagnosed with prostate cancer for the first time will more than likely be traumatic for you and your loved ones, being diagnosed with recurrent prostate cancer can be devastating. Your doctor will prescribe a prostate cancer treatment plan that is designed to help you beat this disease. For those who have recurrent prostate cancer, there are many prostate cancer treatment that your physician may advise you to try.
Radiation Therapy
One prostate cancer treatment option is radiation therapy. This prostate cancer treatment includes the use of radiation of high energy from protons, neutrons, gamma rays and x-rays, as well as other sources to kill the cancerous cells and to shrink any existing tumors. There are two ways that radiation therapy can be administered as prostate cancer treatment. The first is from a machine that is located outside your body called external beam radiation therapy, or you may have material that is radioactive that is placed in your body near where the cancer is located. This is referred to as internal radiation therapy.
Hormone Therapy
Another prostate cancer treatment your doctor may employ is hormone therapy. This prostate cancer treatment will remove, block or add hormones. When you are suffering with recurrent prostate cancer, hormone therapy may aid in preventing the growth of the cancer. It is also used as a cancer treatment for breast cancer as well.
Prostatectomy
If you are not responding to conventional methods of prostate cancer treatment, your doctor may suggest that you have a prostatectomy. This is an operation that will remove some or all of the prostate. When you have a radical or total prostatectomy, the surgical team will remove the entire prostate gland as well as surrounding tissue.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a common prostate cancer treatment as well as a treatment for a host of other types of cancer. Chemotherapy can come with a lot of side effects and if this is the course of prostate cancer treatment your doctor recommends, you will learn about the possible side effects you may suffer with this treatment option. There may be other prostate cancer treatment other then those mentioned that your doctor will discuss at length with you.
Prostate Cancer Treatment - What Kind of Drugs Are Used To Treat Prostate Cancer
Doctors will try different medications before referring you to a medical oncologist. If you are referred to one that would imply that your prostate cancer has reached an advanced stage. They would then be speaking about Chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy will destroy the cancer cells by interfering with their growth and reproduction. Chemotherapy can be performed either by administering drugs or by performing surgical operations. In some cases, it could be a combination of these two. Chemotherapy can in some cases be very effective the prostate cancer but will not cure it.
The known side-effects are chemotherapy are nausea, hair losses and mouth sores. A new technique called fractionated dose will diminish those side-effects.
Two common chemotherapy drugs are Mitoxantrone as well as Corticosteroids. The other drugs that are used for chemotherapy are rednisone, Paclitaxel and Docetaxel. The final brand which is becoming more and more popular is Estramustine.
Doctors will usually advice you to undergo a surgical operation. You will then be given some medications to take. Many studies have shown that this combination reduces the pains experienced by men to a great extent especially if the prostate cancer has spread to the bones. As explained before, the cancer will not totally disappear nor will you live longer.
Let us examine some other medications that are used and how they function:
Doxorubicin is an anti-tumor antibiotic which works by damaging the nuclei of cells.
Paclitaxel is a member of the Taxane group which functions by fastening the microtubules of cells and thus causing the cells to crumble during division.
Etoposide functions by slowing down the process of mitosis in cancerous cells.
Vinblastine is an antineoplastic which breaks apart cell division and is derived from the Madagascar periwinkle.
The use of chemotherapy in prostate cancer is still being studied and men who do have recourse to chemotherapy are strongly encouraged to discuss with their doctors about experimental trials.
Your oncologist will inform you of the benefits and drawbacks to of the different drugs described above. So do seek medical advice too and you would be in a better position to decide according to your own health and your personal values.
What Comes After Prostate Cancer?
Alright, the worst is over. You've had the diagnosis. You've had the surgery or radiation and now your home, not feeling too chipper and a little down.
Well now, you are sitting there alive, contemplating your future, basically the same as the rest of us. You will feel better physically in short time and this is were 'you taking control of your future' comes in.
You have the ability to make your body healthy and your immune system strong. Search the web or your bookstore for rules on eating a balanced diet. Make yourself follow it. Gradually you will see yourself get stronger, you will feel better---and now you can start to think about 'EXERCISE'.
Boy don't you just hate that word. Everybody throws it around like it was comparable to eating chocolate. Personally, the thought of exercise is totally repugnant. You get exercise when you walk, run, vacuum, cut the lawn, lift weights --boring, (especially the vacuuming thing).
But then again, exercise is also golf, swimming, tennis, horse back riding---Oops you'd better hold off on that one for a while. Now I can handle those. OK so what is stopping you?
If your body is healthy and your immune system strong you have a good chance to beat this thing and regain all or most of the functions you had before. National Statistics says that the survival rate for prostate cancer is up to 74.4% and improving all the time. The probable cause is the prostate-specific antigen PSA testing.
So lets see you up off the couch, out on the links, and becoming a gourmet cook at the same time. That's it -'NOW YOUR FIGHTING'.
Modified Citrus Pectin Holds Promise for Prostate Cancer
Better Health Publishing® (BHP), announced the evaluation of five published studies that bolster the current premise by researchers that Modified Citrus Pectin (MCP) is beneficial and effective in helping patients manage prostate cancer. The five studies investigated by BHP include: 1) MCP Induces Cell Death of Prostate Cancer Cells in Co-Cultures with Human Endothelial Monolayers; 2) MCP Slows PSA Doubling Time: A Pilot Clinical Trail; 3) MCP Increases the Prostate Doubling Time in Men with Prostate Cancer: a Phase II Clinical Trial; 4) Human Cancer Cell Growth and Metastasis in Nude Mice by Oral intake of MCP; and 5) Inhibition of Spontaneous Metastasis in a Rat Prostate Cancer Model by Oral Administration of MCP.
The American Cancer Society forecasts that there will be about 219,000 new cases of prostate cancer in the United States in 2007 and about 27,000 men will die of it.
"If you can slow the rise of PSA in recurrent prostate cancer you are slowing the growth of the cancer," said Isaac Eliaz, M.D. L.Ac., M.S. who specializes in cancer treatment at his clinic in the San Francisco Bay Area. "I have been working with MCP and cancer patients for years and have found that my clinical experience is in alignment with the Better Health Publishing analysis. MCP has a measurable beneficial impact upon the health of my prostate cancer patients."
The research supports the findings that MCP plays a role in the reduction of PSA doubling time. Citrus pectin is a water-soluble polysaccharide found abundantly in the white part of the peel of citrus fruits. MCP is created by a depolymerization process resulting in a lower molecular weight compound for increased absorbability. PSA doubling time and the PSA velocity show how fast the prostate cancer is growing after the initial prostate cancer has been removed.
Synopsis of Studies on Pectin
In the first study, Modified Citrus Pectin Induces Cell Death of Prostate Cancer Cells in Co-Cultures with Human Endothelial Monolayers, presented at the International Conference on Diet and Prevention of Cancer in Tampere, Finland - the research demonstrated the ability of MCP to prevent cancer cell adherence to human endothelial tissue. MCP demonstrated more than 20-fold increase in cell death of a co-culture of PC-3 (a human prostate cancer cell line) and an ECV304 cell monolayer (a human endothelial cell line) compared to the control. Since MCP has been shown to interfere with galectin-3 mediated cell-to-cell interactions, this study suggests that MCP may interfere with the adherence of PC-3 cells to an endothelial cell monolayer.
The second study was a human clinical trial, entitled Modified Citrus Pectin Slows PSA Doubling Time: a Pilot Study was also presented at the International Conference on Diet and Prevention of Cancer in Tampere, Finland. This trial evaluated the ability of MCP to influence the PSA slope in men with prostate cancer. Patients who had either relapsed after or proved unresponsive to prior treatment for prostate cancer were given PectaSol MCP at a dosage of 15 grams per day in three divided oral doses. The conclusions indicate a response in 57% of patients, with a more than 30% increase in lengthening of PSA doubling time in those cancer patients with low-level PSA.
The third study, a human clinical trial entitled Modified Citrus Pectin Increases the Prostate Doubling Time in Men with Prostate Cancer: a Phase II Pilot Study, was published in the journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Disease. This trial investigated the tolerability and effect of MCP in patients with prostate cancer and biochemical prostate-specific antigen (PSA) failure after localized treatment, that is, radical prostatectomy, radiation, or cryosurgery. The MCP was well tolerated. Changes in the prostate-specific antigen doubling time (PSADT) were the primary end point in the study. The PSADT increased (P-value < 0.05) in seven (70%) of the men after taking MCP for 12 months compared to before taking MCP, indicating a slow down in the growth of the recurrent cancer. This study indicated that MCP might lengthen the PSADT and slow down the growth in men with recurrent prostate cancer.
In the fourth study, entitled Inhibition of Human Cancer Cell Growth and Metastasis in Nude Mice by Oral intake of Modified Citrus Pectin, published in Journal of National Cancer Institute the effects of MCP to specifically inhibit the carbohydrate-binding protein galectin-3 on tumor growth and metastasis in vivo and on galectin-3-mediated functions in vitro was clearly demonstrated. MCP, given orally, inhibits carbohydrate-mediated tumor growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis in vivo, presumably via its effects on galectin-3 function. These data stress the importance of MCP as an agent for the prevention and/or treatment of cancer.
The objective of the fifth study, entitled Inhibition of Spontaneous Metastasis in a Rat Prostate Cancer Model by Oral Administration of Modified Citrus Pectin published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute was to determine whether MCP, could inhibit spontaneous metastasis of prostate adenocarcinoma cells in rats. The results indicated that compared with 15 or 16 control rats with lung metastases on day 30, seven of 14 rats in the 0.1% and nine of 16 rats in the 1.0% MCP group had statistically significant (P < .03 and P < .001, respectively) reductions in lung metastases. The lungs of the 1.0% MCP-treated rats had significantly (P < .05) fewer metastatic colonies than in the control group. In vitro, MCP inhibited MAT-LyLu cell adhesion to rat endothelial cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner as well as in their colony formation. The study indicated that oral intake of MCP acts as a potent inhibitor of spontaneous prostate carcinoma metastasis in the Copenhagen rat.
"The analysis of these studies suggests that MCP is beneficial in the treatment of prostate cancer", commented Dr. Eliaz. "The exciting aspect of using modified citrus pectin is that it is a safe, nontoxic natural product, which is a real concern for cancer patients. So safety and efficacy are two important elements in the use of MCP in prostate cancer patients, as well as in patients with other kinds of cancer."
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