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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / February 2005Zoladex
Does Zoladex do anything besides lower psa? Does it kill cancer cells? GN GN, Zoladex does NOT kill PCa cells. For those cells that are androgen dependent, it starves them. In combination with a drug, such as Casodex which suppresses testosterone production in the adrenal glands, it can delay recurrence to a variable length of time. Oh, it can also cause hot flashes, breast development, weight gain, etc. Some believe if you can reduce the level of cancer cells sufficiently it MAY be possible for the body's immune system to kill them - no documentation on this though. DanR Gary, I agree with DanR. As a survivor (so far) of two injections of Zoladex and a thirty day supply of Casodex, (prior to radiation treatment) my understanding is these items inhibit the growth of cancerous colonies and thereby lower the PSA level. They are not curative agents, but rather, slow the further development of bad things. Keeping it simple... JohnA >Subject: Zoladex >From: "Gary Nichols" outofiraq@att.net [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >GN Zoladex prevents most prostate cancer cells from multiplying. The prostate cancer cells eventually die a natural death. Eventually those that manage to multiply produce a damaged (mutated) cell that can multiply without testosterone, and the zoledex stops working. >>Subject: Zoladex >>From: "Gary Nichols" outofiraq@att.net [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >multiply produce a damaged (mutated) cell that can multiply without >testosterone, and the zoledex stops working. Can you put a percentage on the chance of mutation? Ben Danny McCarty wrote: Subject: Zoladex From: "Gary Nichols" outofiraq@att.net Date: 4/20/2004 6:03 PM Central Daylight Time Message-id: <L_hhc.4383$_o3.137840@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> Does Zoladex do anything besides lower psa? Does it kill cancer cells? GN Zoladex prevents most prostate cancer cells from multiplying. The prostate cancer cells eventually die a natural death. Eventually those that manage to multiply produce a damaged (mutated) cell that can multiply without testosterone, and the zoledex stops working. Can you put a percentage on the chance of mutation? Ben ---- Ben, I think I would rephrase Danny's answer a bit. I'm not sure that the cancer cells mutate. Rather it's that some of the cells are highly dependent on testosterone in order to grow and divide and others are less dependent. Over a long period of hormone suppression (an average of about three years), the cells that need little testosterone keep growing to the point where they become the predominant cells (the others have not been able to grow) and, at that point, the patient becomes "hormone refractory". Hormone deprivation no longer significantly slows the growth of his cancer. How any particular individual will react is not known. A few lucky individuals (if anyone with cancer can be called lucky) seem to be very highly hormone dependent. Cutting off hormones can stop the growth of the cancer for many years, perhaps indefinitely (I'm getting this from Steven Strum's book) for those people. But for the average person, three years of low PSA is about what we can expect from hormone suppression. Some people think that can be stretched slightly, maybe to four years or so, with intermittent hormone therapy - but there's debate about that. Others believe in "combined androgen blockade", using multiple hormone suppression drugs to try to really starve the cancer cells and get more time that way. But there's debate about that too. Alan >Subject: Re: Zoladex >From: Ben klikos@sympatico.ca [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] >Can you put a percentage on the chance of mutation? >Ben The "mean time to failure" is about four years. It mutates in nearly everyone. Hi, background, aged 59, Gleason 8, radio therapy due. I seem to be getting increasingly tired, besides increasing hot flushes (1- 2 hours at bedtime), 90% leg hair loss ,etc,etc and was wondering how other folks get on with the drug. I'm trying to work out if landscape/small building work will be too much for me after radio as I need to keep taking Zoladex for 2-3 years due to a maybe hot spot. Ray |
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