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| Using herbal support produces a more effective attack upon the cancer, reduces the overall toxicity of the chemotherapy, and lowers the chance of eventual cancer-cell mutation. Cancer-cell mutation occurs when chemotherapy that was once effective is no longer working because the cancer-cell line has become immune to it. When this happens, and this is not an uncommon situation, the protocol needs to change. |
| Hormone Therapy |
| Hormone therapy has been somewhat successful in treating types of cancer that are hormone-dependent, notably breast cancer and prostate cancer. In these two types of cancer, sometimes the ovaries or the testicles are removed so that the hormones that were supporting the cancer will no longer be produced. |
| Androgens (male hormones) are sometimes given to patients to treat breast cancer, and estrogens, which are female hormones, such as DES-flutamide (Eulexin), are given to treat prostate cancer. Hormone-blocking drugs, such as tamoxifen, which is used to treat and prevent recurrence of breast cancer, are very often used. Because of the estrogenlike effects of tamoxifen, bone density increases and cholesterol is sometimes lowered in post-menopausal women who take this drug. Another drug, raloxifene, has recently been developed and has similar effects. However, it has a much broader application as preventive maintenance therapy for breast cancer as well as osteoporosis. Both tamoxifen and raloxifene work by binding to specific estrogen receptors on the surface of tumor cells where the hormones would normally bind, and they inhibit the cell from growing and reproducing. These drugs are generally taken following surgery and/or chemotherapy to prevent a local recurrence or metastasis of cancers that are hormone dependent. |
| Some of the possible side effects of hormone therapy are: |
| 1. Nausea, vomiting, loss of fertility. |
| 2. In womendeepening of the voice, increased sexual desire, increased growth of body hair, menopausal symptoms in premenopausal women, bleeding in postmenopausal women. |
| 3. In menraising of the voice, decreased sexual desire, impotence, enlarged breasts. |
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