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Prostate cancer patient was cured thanks to testosterone therapy.
Doctors have discovered a way to cure prostate cancer by developing a new hormone therapy which uses testosterone to kill tumors. Testosterone is the major factor influencing the development of a tumor, so most prostate cancer therapies deprive tumors of this hormone.
However, scientists came with a different approach by trying to use testosterone as a weapon against tumors. Therefore, they conducted an experiment during which they flooded a patient’s body with testosterone.
The experts were surprised when they saw the positive results of the therapy. Also, other 46 patients were part of the study, and they also experienced positive responses. More precisely, the prostate cancer stopped progressing, whereas the tumors started shrinking.
The experimental therapy relies on three stages of bipolar androgen therapy, known as BAT. During the treatment, the patient’s body is alternatively flooded and starved of testosterone. This therapy is different than the traditional treatment, during which doctors reduce the testosterone supply, or they block its effects.
However, BAT uses high doses of testosterone at every 28 days. At the same time, the patients are also given a medication which stops the production of the male hormone. To find out whether BAT is working, researchers tracked prostate cancer by monitoring the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA).
If the level of this blood marker is high, it means that the disease progressed, but in the majority of patients, the PSA plummeted. In addition to this, one patient had the lowest PSA level after twenty-two cycles of therapy, so the researchers said that he might have been cured because there was no sign of the tumor left.
According to Sam Denmeade, lead researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, his team’s goal was to shock all cancer cell by exposing them repeatedly to high and low testosterone levels.
He further added that the man who might have been cured had zero PSA levels after 90 days of treatment. In other words, he completely recovered. Prostate cancer has the highest prevalence across the United States.
Based on this year’s estimates, over 180,000 men have been diagnosed with prostate cancer throughout the country. This means that 1 in 7 men develops this condition during his lifetime, and that is why doctors will continue their research to make sure that BAT pays off.
Image Source: Wikipedia
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