PC-SPES Prostate cancer is a significant health problem for men. As the population ages and the average life span of a man is in the high 70 s, the significance of previously insignificiant prostate cancer is rising. The incidence of prostate cancer rises with age and with longer life spans, men have more of a chance to develop symptoms from the disease. Metastatic prostate cancer is sensitive to hormonal therapy. Almost all men with metastatic cancer experience an improvement in their disease with hormonal manipulation.
Some patients even respond to tertiary hormonal manipulation with agents such as ketoconazole.
Thus, the definition of hormonally refractory disease comes into some question. Eventually, the disease does become truly hormonally refractory and chemotherapy enters the picture. Plant estrogenic substances are being used more frequently with or without convincing evidence of efficacy. Therefore it is good to see a critically analyzed study of a new therapy for prostate cancer. PC-SPES is a combination of extracts from 8 different herbs including chrysanthemum, isatis, licorice ginseng, Rabdosia, Ganoderma lucidum, saw palmetto and skullcap.