Hormones
The use of hormones in conjunction with cancer treatment is widely-debated throughout the medical community. Learn more about the complications and the effectiveness of hormones, including its relationship with radiation.
If you are newly diagnosed with prostate cancer and want to learn more about how RCOG can help you, call 800-952-7687.
Question 119:
Do you ever give hormones along with ProstRcision?
Answer:
Hormones are rarely given (less than 1% of men) with ProstRcision and only if men have very advanced disease. However, we have seen a large number of men who received hormones before they came to RCOG for ProstRcision. Almost all these men had side effects and complications from hormones but no benefit.
Question 120:
How do you know these men did not benefit from hormones?
Answer:
Approximately 8% of patients we have treated at RCOG were given hormone shots by their doctor before they contacted us. We compared cure rates of these men with those men treated with ProstRcision and no hormones. Cure rates are the same. In other words, men who got hormones did not have a better cure rate. Consequently, almost all men who received hormones before ProstRcision did so needlessly.
Question 121:
What complications can result from hormones?
Answer:
There are a number of complications. Almost all men get hot flashes, similar to a woman going through menopause, which can last for a year or more with just one hormone shot. Virtually all sexually-active men will lose sexual function for many months — both the ability to achieve an erection and the desire to have sex — after hormone treatment. Furthermore, many of these men never regain sexual function. If given over a long period of time, hormones can also cause thinning of the bones (osteoporosis), which increases your chance of breaking a bone. Additional complications are weight gain, muscle weakness and an overall loss of energy. Recent medical studies have documented that men who receive hormones have increased problems with thought process (making decisions or thinking clearly), as well as an increased chance of diabetes and heart attacks.60,61,62,63,64 The degree to which men have these various side effects and complications varies from person to person, as well as how long hormones are given. Consequently, with rare exceptions, hormones, are not used at RCOG.
Question 122:
Why do so many doctors recommend hormones along with irradiation?
Answer:
Medical studies have shown that men with advanced cancer benefit from a combination of hormones and irradiation but only if the irradiation is external beam radiation.65,66,67 In contrast, medical studies of seed implantation plus hormones show no benefit to men.68,69 Unfortunately, a lot of doctors wrongly assume that if hormones benefit men who have only beam radiation, then all men who receive radiation would benefit. These doctors make a drastic mistake, causing men who get hormones to have needless complications.
Question 123:
Why would men who have only beam radiation benefit from hormones, but not those men who receive ProstRcision?
Answer:
If men are treated with a method that has a low cure rate (estimate is 25% for IMRT beam radiation), they might benefit from hormones. However, if you give a treatment that has a high chance of cure, such as ProstRcision (cure rate of 83%), the cure rate is not improved (see Table 1). The same is seen with surgery. Men who receive hormones plus radical prostatectomy (cure rate 70–80%) have no improvement in cure rates versus radical prostatectomy alone.70
