Cancer is treated in many different ways because there are so many types. Certain types of cancer rely on hormones to help them grow. These cancers can be treated with hormone therapy. Also called endocrine therapy, this cancer treatment works by starving the cancer cells of a vital resource.
Some types of cancer are very sensitive to hormones. These tend to be cancers that develop from hormone-sensitive tissues like the breasts, ovaries, uterus, and prostate. Hormone therapy is a useful tool for controlling the growth of these types of cancer. It can work in several ways to keep cancer cells from getting the hormones they need to make copies of themselves. It plays a key role in the treatment of many breast and prostate cancers.
Hormone therapy does not always mean using hormones as a treatment. More often, it modifies your hormones or stops the cancer cells from being able to receive them. Hormone therapy can work in three different ways to stop cancer cells from using hormones.
Hormone replacement therapy is often used as a treatment before surgery to shrink tumors (neoadjuvant therapy) or decrease the risk of their return (adjuvant therapy). It is usually combined with chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or radiation therapy.
Hormone therapy may come as an oral treatment that you take at home. It may also be an injection or IV treatment that you receive in our comfortable infusion center. How often you receive treatment will depend on your individualized treatment plan.
Hormones play an important role in many aspects of your health, so hormone therapy can have side effects depending on which hormones are affected. Prostate cancer hormone therapy leads to side effects related to testosterone levels, including:
Women who receive hormone therapy can experience:
Your medical team will help you manage these side effects. Many people who receive hormone therapy will regain normal hormone levels later, although others may remain on hormone therapy for many years to prevent cancer from recurring.
Your Cochise Oncology team will perform testing, including genetic tests, on cancer cells to determine whether they will respond to hormone therapy. For example, eight out of ten breast cancers have hormone receptors, but those that do not will not respond to hormone therapy. You may not be a good candidate if you already have certain hormonal disorders or other medical conditions.
Do you have questions about hormone therapy? Reach out to Cochise Oncology at (520) 803-6644 or fill out the consultation form on this page. Cochise Oncology: Healing Begins Here.
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