Patients and partners lack knowledge of androgen deprivation therapy side effects

re: "Chemical Castration"---As I recall, the whole ADT thing was discovered among prison populations. Those inmates convicted of sexual crimes who had been chemically castrated showed significantly less occurence of prostate cancer than the rest of the prison population. Someone put 2 + 2 together and voila--ADT.

Newspaper lover,

How did you and your Dr. come to the decision to do HT for 1 year only?

We are trying to deceide how long to stay on our treatment plan of HT.
Thinking of 12-13 monthes and then off until or unless it starts to rise!
Good luck with your next test

BOOGEE

BOOGEE,

There seem to be many ways to go about this.  In the end I just followed my oncologists' plan.  I am being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, and have seen both a medical oncologist and a radiation oncologist at the center.  At the time treatment actually started early last December, from conversations I think the relevant factors that went into their thinking were:

...  Gleason 8

...  Recurrence after surgery in 18 months

...  Bone scan and MRIs taken at Sloan in November 2011 were negative

Although my doubling time during the summer/ early fall of 2011 was three months, they seemed to put less weight on this.

NewspaperLover

 

Lupron has 75% of the market share in sales (-:} Zoladex likely is #2 in sales dollars, both of them lost past law suits and combined paid out around 900 million dollars (fun-fun), it didn't even phase their business apparently and doing as well as ever, even with new competition like Degarelix. Also, I noticed my loving uro-doc switched me from zoladex to lupron without my conscent, I saw the billing change to the insurance company (lol= $700 more per shot for Lupron), better living through scamming the system (and fubar to the customer patient).

Of course they are going to down play the beautiful side effects, they probably want you on it for years and years or better yet, forever. Never tell a patient about estradiol patches, gels, DES, emcyt and other choices or even forget casodex, eulexin, nilandron....only Lupron is your ticket (lol- just happens to be the most profittable too). I am not against using these LHRH drugs, just wish more truth and transparency were given to the patients, maybe do the LHRH for 1-2 yrs. or whatever and then switch to drugs with less dimishing side effects of bone density loss and memory loss. You could even take casodex+proscar in a small study by Wheeler et al (mentioned in Dr. Strum's book), the patients whom did casodex+proscar (lesser costs, lesser side effects too) had about equal results in non-refractive (hormone naivee) patients even when compared to using Lupron+casodex vs. casodex+proscar....isn't that interesting and yet it is not talked about or prescribed very often. Could save the insurance companies a fortune, but they must all be in bed together....nobody cares about the money (billings), I did ADT3 for 2 yrs., per year in 2002-2003 it was around $13,000 costs, when I switched to DES 1-mg cost was $130 per year for the pills (not counting coumadin added along with it). It also outperformed the ADT3 (I have the psa's to prove it) and little to no side effects for me. I also pay cash for the DES and don't even bother the insurance company, but I am saving them a fortune and over 8 yrs. now really adds up. I occassionally added casodex over the years, now generic is cheap over the brand name stuff. It was my decision to switch and use this, however I have an open minded doc whom I am very pleased with for the last 8 yrs. , sure not expecting to beat this disease, but enjoying your life for years and years while you can and not feel like a ATM for the medical system is very fulfilling.  (peace)

Post Edited (zufus) : 8/28/2012 7:08:48 PM (GMT-6)

Thanks 'News'....Dr. Fred Lee used emcyt (estrogenic capsules) on his PCa and that was his only drug apparently, must work he is around 32 yrs. with incurable PCa and in his 80's, still working too. Wonder why he didn't use Lupron????