Add to this a potentially negative impact on any pursuit of intermittent hormonal therapy. The type of drug used in this implant is not new. LHRH drugs send out a constant signal which, paradoxially, brings about chemical castration. The pituitary goes into overdrive. The body's production of testosterone jumps above the normal scale.
Feedback goes back to tell the brain that no more male hormone is needed.
Within a month, the level of testosterone in the blood drops dramatically and usually will stay down. During the first week, though, that vastly increased outpouring of testosterone may cause cancer to flare. Which patients in this trial were exposed to. Disease flare is wholly preventible if money is available to pay for additional antiandrogen drugs to control the cancer ahead of and during the first month or so of LHRH use. For more than a decade, no man started on Lupron, Zoladex or any LHRH drug needed to go unprotected against flare.