Prostate Treatment And Heart Problems

� � Sep-30-2009

Here is a good as well as a bad news together. While the common healing for prostate cancer may help you to fight the disease, it may also somewhat enhance the peril of having a cardiac ailment. This has been established by a new research, findings of which were declared at a combined meeting of the European Cancer Organization and the European Society for Medical Oncology in Berlin.

According to experts, the findings of the new research will now make the physicians be more cautious prior to recommending the regular hormone cure to men enduring prostate cancer; especially if they are facing a peril of heart ailments. Mieke Van Hemelrijck, the study's lead researcher and a cancer epidemiologist with the King's College in London, stated that the findings of the research would enable them to issue a warning to the physicians regarding the hormone healings associated commonly with prostate cancer cure.

It may be mentioned here that after lung cancer, prostate cancer is the second more devastating disease among men worldwide. It is appalling to note that over 670,000 men are analyzed to be suffering from prostate cancer across the world every year. In the United States alone, approximately 600,000 men are now being healed with endocrine remedies for prostate cancer. In fact, during the research, Mieke Van Hemelrijck and his associates examined over 30,000 men suffering from prostate cancer in Sweden. All these patients had received hormone therapy for about three years between 1997 and 2006. The researchers put side by side the number of such patients suffering from heart ailments and the common people of Sweden to arrive at a conclusion.

During the research, scientists found that patients suffering from prostate cancer comparatively faced a 28 per cent greater risk of having a mortal heart attack and are also faced with a 21 per cent more risk of dying owing to heart ailments. Yet, such hazard are believed to be low vis-�-vis total conditions, as, according to an approximation by the researchers, the hormone treatments were likely to result in an addition 10 heart problems, such as chest pain or heart attack, every year for each 1000 prostate cancer patients.

According to Michael Thun, a vice-president emeritus at the American Cancer Society who was not related to the study conducted by Van Hemelrijck and his colleagues, the findings of the research should encourage the prostate cancer patients to talk to their physicians regarding the mode of treatment, especially hormone therapies and their effects. Thun is of the view that this would definitely make a lot of sense and hoped that it would possibly change the direction of prostate cancer treatment some day.

Some earlier studies on the subject had established that when prostate cancer patients with a history of heart ailments were given hormone treatment it enhanced their mortality risks. According to a new theory put forward by Van Hemelrijck, hormone therapy interrupts the usual distribution of testosterone in the body. Scientists are of the opinion that testosterone provides some sort of protection to the heart. Therefore, it is comprehensible why the hormones which get in the way of circulation of testosterone in the body could prove to be fatal.

Although Michael Thun admitted that there is no precise proof of the fact that giving hormone treatment to prostate patients could be fatal, he suggested that still the physicians should take into account the possible risks of heart problems while prescribing hormone treatment to such patients. He said that in such cases the risk of heart problems cannot be overlooked by the doctors.

On the other hand, Helen Rippon, who heads the research management at Britain's Prostate Cancer Charity, does not consider the increased risk of heart problems of the prostate cancer patients taking hormone thereby to be an enormous threat. According to Rippon, the advantages of hormone therapy for prostate cancer patients are eventually more important than the enhanced risk of heart problems of such patients.

Rippon further stated that the advantages derived by the huge mass of men suffering from prostate cancer from hormone therapy are very obvious - this method of healing can not only stop the progress of the disease, but also impede it for prolonged periods. She added that all the time the clinicians decide on a case-by-case base and the findings of the latest research by the team of scientists led by Mieke Van Hemelrijck is just additional information on the subject that the clinicians need to take into account.