If you have prostate cancer and you are an elderly man you may want to consider other options other than hormone therapy. A study has shown the one in four U.S. men with early prostate cancer will undergo hormone therapy, but it more likely to more harmful to them than helpful.
The surgery to remove the prostate, radical prostatectomy, is a little too risky for men that are in their 70s and 80s. When these men are found to have the early stages of prostate cancer, they will have three options to choose from.
The first option is they can wait to see whether this usually slow-moving cancer will become a problem. This type of observation is called conservative therapy or watchful waiting. The second option is to undergo radiation therapy and suffer its side effects. The third option is to undergo androgen-deprivation therapy: hormonal drugs such as Lupron, Eligard, Viduar, and Zoladex, or undergo surgery (orchiectomy) that will cut off the production of the male hormones.
Older men that are in the United States often opt for stand-alone hormone therapy, even thought there is really no proof that it is really helpful. One of the hormone therapy's most obvious side effects is sexual dysfunction. According to recent studies, the greater concern now with hormone therapy is linking the androgen deprivation therapies to heart disease, diabetes, bone fractures, and a reduction in muscle mass.
The most recent study on the hormone therapy strongly suggests that this type of therapy offer elderly men no benefit to justify these serious risks. Grace L. Lu- Yao Ph.D., MPH, which is from the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey, and her colleagues collected data from more than 19,000 mean that have been diagnosed with the early stages of prostate cancer at the average age of 77. Out of these men, none of them underwent surgery or radiation treatment for the early prostate cancer. Nearly 8,000 of the men, however, did decide to go with androgen deprivation therapy.
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