This treatment can take several forms. Since male hormones, such as testosterone, help cancer cells grow female hormones or estrogens inhibit growth. Another group of hormones, known as LHRH agonists, also helps decrease the amount of male hormones present without many of the side effects associated with estrogens. Men with advanced cancer sometime undergo orchiectomy, or surgical removal of the testicles, to stop the production of testosterone. The side effects of orchiectomy include are similar to those of estrogen hormone therapy.
Chemotherapy uses drugs to get rid of cancer cells.
Because these drugs travel throughout the body, chemotherapy offers the advantage of helping to destroy cancer cells that may have broken away from the main tumor and spread to other areas of the body through a process known as metastasis. Chemotherapy can be given orally or through a needle into a vein or muscle. To date, chemotherapy has not proven to be very effective in treating prostate cancer, but clinical trials are in progress to find more effective drugs. Immunotherapy tries to get the body's natural defense mechanism, the immune system, to fight cancer. Immunotherapy uses materials made by your own body or made in a laboratory to boost, direct or restore the effectiveness of the immune system to eliminate cancer cells.