An abnormal medical condition that affects gravely the body and its functions is cancer.

There are many types of cancer but most of them have as main causes some ordinary factors such as the inherited genes or the aging process, even race, the poor alimentation in minerals or natural products, excessive smoking and alcohol drinking, the working and living environment, etc.

Even the male specific gland of the reproductive system responsible with the making of the seminal fluid, the prostate, can be affected by cancer; this organ is located near the bladder and urethra so if cancer infects that precise region of the body, a person might experience some painful symptoms when urinating.

Any hormonal unbalances caused by the decrease of the male specific hormone, the testosterone, especially when men reach the problematic age of forty when the “male menopause” develops, can lead to some serious prostate disorders and diseases such as prostatitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia (enlargement of the prostate) and the common prostate cancer.

The general information about the prostate cancer and treatments such as the hormone therapy tells us that the hypothalamus or that part of the brain responsible with the monitoring of the testosterone levels reacts whenever that levels drop by releasing two chemicals: the LHRH or the luteinizing hormone releasing hormone or the GnRH or the gonadotropin releasing hormone that stimulates the production of the hormone in the testicles.

Once every four years, the primary malignant tumor formed in the infected organ will double its size and will eventually spread outside the prostate capsule to the areas near the gland, becoming locally advanced; without treatment the cancerous cells will travel through the lymph system and bloodstream to far distance regions of the body where they will allow the apparition of secondary and small tumors which will gravely affect vital organs such as the lungs and brain. The last stage of the prostate cancer is the stage of metastatic cancer and sometimes the spreading being so complex that doctors can not determine the site of the primary tumor so they have to refer to this type of cancer as cancer of unknown primary.

Each type of cancer is unique because its spreading process will take place in different periods of time in different patients, with different stages and different effects on that patient’s organism. Not only the prognosis for the outcome of the prostate cancer will become challenging but also the process of determining the characteristics of that cancer after diagnose and prescribing the correct treatment for it.

The popular methods of detection are the screening tests and the prostate biopsy, complemented by newer ones such as the nomogram or the prostate mapping.

The results of the screening tests have to be interpreted by medical specialists who will decide if a future medical investigation is needed or not. The digital rectal exam is unpleasant but by palpating directly the size of the prostate gland with a gloved finger a doctor can determine if an abnormality is felt and with the prostate specific antigen blood tests, the levels of the PSA are indicating the existence or nonexistence of tumors in the infected gland.

In the 1940’s it was discovered that fact that testosterone, about ninety percent of the body’s hormones being produced by the testicles, can cause the enlargement of the prostate and allows the multiplication of the cancer cells. Charles B. Huggins discovered a method of opposing the effects of the testosterone with estrogen, a method you now all know as the androgen deprivation therapy or the hormone therapy. Treatments such as the hormone therapy and chemotherapy can prolong the life of patients with last stage cancer.

Doctors will give information about the hormone therapy for prostate cancer whenever it is needed, especially when it comes to the side-effects such as breast enlargement or impotence, diabetes or cardiovascular incidents that lead to death.

According to the latest androgen deprivation therapy information for the prostate cancer, men who have opted for the chemical castration have an increased dying risk of about eighty five percent higher than the ones who opted not to be treated with this therapy.

There are four methods of hormone therapy: using estrogen to stop the GnRH production; castration done by using orchiectomy or the surgical removal of the testicles, LHRH antagonists and LHRG agonists to block the message process in the brain; anti-androgens that fill in the receptors of the cells and blocking the interaction of testosterone with the prostate gland; combined androgen blockage by using both anti-androgens and castration.