Explaining Androgen Deprivation Therapy For Prostate Cancer Treatment

During the old days, practice of Androgen Deprivation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Treatment is what scares many men. Losing a part of your genitalia, for a man to lose ones faculty for sex is too much for a cure that’s percentage driven.

The former practice, this Androgen Deprivation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Treatment is Orchiectomy or the surgical castration –a term that hardly requires definition. The science for this is that testosterone stimulates prostate cancer growth. Testosterone is the male androgen hormone essential for a boy’s development to manhood. It is responsible for many things characteristically man: baritone voice, deepening of chests, bulging of muscles, and growth of body hair among several things. And an enzyme that is secreted in the prostate gland converts this testosterone into a metabolite Dihydrotestosterone (abbreviated as DHT) which is a cancer stimulating cell.

And because the testicles produce the majority of the testosterone, the Androgen Deprivation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Treatment includes Orchiectomy or this surgical castration where the prostate cancer cells are deprived of testosterone thus, starving it to death. Of course, as I’ve mentioned it is percentage driven. Testosterone in majority is produces in the testicles, but other gonads do build testosterone, and one of them is the prostate itself.

Another method in castration is the Chemical Castration. It is done by making the pituitary gland over-stimulate the Leydig Cells, thus making the requirement for stimulation too high that it will have a reduced stimulated ability and wearing the cells out. Leydig Cells is primarily responsible for testosterone secretion. The effects of chemical castration include sexual dysfunction, among other things.

Today’s practice for Androgen Deprivation Therapy for Prostate Cancer Treatment is decidedly different, thank God. That means we men can keep what makes us men in the first place. The practice of today is blocking the switching of testosterone into DHT. By using enzymes like 5-AR inhibitor Finasteride or the more potent Dutasteride (Proscar and Avodart, respectively), the testosterone is prevented from turning into DHT. This is a more laudable solution to battling prostate cancer by Androgen Deprivation Therapy than chopping some part of your genitalia off.

Every physician differs in medical practice but that doesn’t mean you’d have to be the next castrated prostate cancer survivor. Try asking your doctor on the benefits of using anti androgen drugs or androgen receptor blockers for your Androgen Deprivation Therapy for prostate treatment. Believe me; you’d not want to have hot flushes and enlarging breast as a side effect to prostate cancer treatment.