Hormone therapy is a cancer treatment that slows or stops the growth of cancer that uses hormones to grow.
Hormone therapy is used to: 1  Treat cancer. 2  Hormone therapy can lessen the chance that cancer will return or stop or slow its growth. 3  Ease cancer symptoms. 4  Hormone therapy may be used to reduce or prevent symptoms in men with prostate cancer who are not able to have surgery or radiation therapy. When used with other treatments, hormone therapy can: 1  Make a tumor smaller before surgery or radiation therapy. 2  This is called neo-adjuvant therapy. 3  Lower the risk that cancer will come back after the main treatment. 4  This is called  Hormone treatment is primarily used if prostate cancer has spread outside the prostate. It does not cure cancer. The purpose of hormone therapy is to delay the progression of the cancer and increase survival while maximizing quality of life. If a patient doesn't respond to initial hormone treatment, a doctor may try other hormonal methods before recommending chemotherapy. Hormone therapy is a form of systemic therapy that works to add, block or remove hormones from the body to slow or stop the growth of cancer cells. At Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), we use hormone therapy to fight various forms of cancer alongside Integrative Oncology Services to combat side effects. Hormone therapy usually involves taking medications that prevent cancer cells from getting the hormones they need to grow. In some cases, your doctor may surgically remove the gland responsible for hormone production. How hormone therapy works. Some cancers use hormones to grow. These cancers are called hormone sensitive or hormone dependent. Hormone therapy uses drugs that either stop the body producing hormones or prevent hormones from making the cancer cells grow and divide. The female hormones oestrogen and progesterone affect some breast cancers. Doctors describe these cancers as oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) or progesterone receptor positive (PR+) or both. Hormone treatment for breast cancer works by stopping these hormones getting to the breast cancer cells. Hormonal therapy in oncology is hormone therapy for cancer and is one of the major modalities of medical oncology (pharmacotherapy for cancer), others being cytotoxic chemotherapy and targeted therapy (biotherapeutics).  Hormone therapy is a cancer treatment that slows or stops the growth of cancer that uses hormones to grow. Hormone therapy is also called hormonal therapy, hormone treatment, or endocrine therapy. When used with other treatments, hormone therapy can: 1  Make a tumor smaller before surgery or radiation therapy. 2  This is called neo-adjuvant therapy. 3  Lower the risk that cancer will come back after the main treatment. 4  This is called  In this article. Hormones that every woman has in her body -- estrogen and progesterone -- can serve as fuel for some types of breast cancer. They help the cells grow and spread. Hormone therapy, also called endocrine therapy, adds, blocks, or removes those chemicals to treat the disease. Tamoxifen is a pill that doctors have prescribed for more than 30 years to treat breast cancer. It works by blocking estrogen from attaching to the cancer cells. Doctors first used tamoxifen to treat women whose breast cancer had spread in their bodies because it slowed or stopped the growth of Hormonal therapy medicines are whole-body (systemic) treatment for hormone-receptor-positive breast cancers. Hormone receptors are like ears on breast cells that listen to signals from hormones. These signals turn on growth in cells that have receptors. Most breast cancers are hormone-receptor-positive. 1  About 80% of breast cancers are estrogen-receptor positive. 2  About 65% of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancers are also progesterone-receptor-positive. 3  About 13% of breast cancers are estrogen-receptor-positive and progesterone-receptor-negative. What hormone therapy is. Some cancers use these hormones to grow. Hormone therapy for cancer is the use of medicines to block the effects of hormones. It does not work for all types of cancer. Doctors use hormone therapy for people with cancers that are hormone sensitive or hormone dependent. The female hormones oestrogen and progesterone affect some breast cancers. Doctors describe these cancers as oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) or progesterone receptor positive (PR+) or both. Hormone treatment for breast cancer works by stopping these hormones getting to the breast cancer cells. Hormone therapy for breast cancer. Hormone therapy is another form of systemic therapy. It is most often used as an adjuvant therapy to help reduce the risk of the cancer coming back after surgery, but it can be used as neoadjuvant treatment, as well. Several studies have compared these drugs to tamoxifen as adjuvant (after surgery) hormone therapy in post-menopausal women. Using these drugs, either alone or after tamoxifen, has been shown to better reduce the risk of the cancer coming back later than using just tamoxifen for 5 years.
http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/hormone-therapy http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/hormone-therapy http://www.cancercenter.com/treatments/hormone-therapy/ http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/treatment/hormone/what-hormone-therapy-is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormonal_therapy_(oncology) http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/hormone-therapy http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/hormone-therapy-overview http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/hormonal/what_is http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancers-in-general/treatment/hormone/what-hormone-therapy-is http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/detailedguide/breast-cancer-treating-hormone-therapy
what is hormone therapy for cancer