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Basically a course of hormone treatment is a chemical castration. The drugs stop the flow of testosterone, which in turn stop the cancer in its tracks and can reverse its growth.

In many cases this situation is only good for approx. two years after which the cancer 'learns' to reproduce without the flow of testosterone and its aggressive growth begins again.

There is argument about :-

MAB, (maximum androgen blockade), additional hormones given to ensure that not a trace of testosterone is in the body. Is it worth the extra cost and does it achieve any worth while benefit ?

Also intermittent or pulse treatment. Here the hormones are taken until the PSA level is down to below 1, or some similar agreed level when the treatment is stopped. This enables the body to regain normality, i.e. sexual drive, no hot flushes etc. Quarterly PSA levels are checked and when they rise to a predetermined level, say 25, the treatment is started again.

The theory here is that by not continually depriving the prostate cancer cells of testosterone it does not 'learn' to reproduce as quickly. There have been no long term trials on this method.

The PHA book 'Prostate Cancer' has full detail of all the treatments and side effects and the Newsletters have news of variations of existing treatments. For instance pulse/intermittent treament used by at least one of our Subscribers and described in Newsletter 1/97.