Individualized treatment of prostate cancer with traditional Chinese medicine

Prostate cancer is an androgen-dependent malignant tumor with a long overall natural history. Many patients present with asymptomatic or mild symptoms, and by the time symptoms such as bone pain develop at an advanced stage. Many early-stage patients will have PSA rebound and recurrence after radical prostatectomy; Many patients do not have PSA rebound until 5 or 6 years after radical resection and have to undergo endocrine therapy.It is recommended that patients after radical prostatectomy do not have a relaxed mentality, thinking that the cancer is treated, which is not correct, and should be closely followed up and observed.

Especially for patients with high Gleason score and many postoperative pathological risk factors, early intervention with traditional Chinese medicine can significantly delay the dosing time of endocrine therapy, and even maintain long-term stability after surgery. For patients who need endocrine therapy or chemoradiotherapy after surgery, traditional Chinese medicine can enhance the sensitivity of endocrine drugs and chemotherapy drug docetaxan, so that patients can continue to be effective.

Some patients will ask, if PSA is detected after radical prostatectomy, does it mean that the tumor has recurred?

As long as a little prostate tissue is left, a very small amount of PSA will be detected after surgery, and the PSA produced by normal prostate tissue per gram is only 0.1ng/ml, while the PSA per gram of prostate cancer tissue reaches 3.5ng/ml, so a trace of PSA after surgery indicates that the prostate is not cut clean, which does not necessarily mean that there is prostate cancer residual or recurrence, but it is necessary to be vigilant. Recurrence is considered only if the PSA rises gradually.

For patients with advanced prostate cancer, almost all patients will progress to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) after endocrine therapy.Why does castration-resistant prostate cancer evolve? As mentioned earlier, as an androgen-dependent malignancy, androgens can stimulate the growth and metastasis of prostate pox cells. In endocrine therapy, mono-castration treatments such as surgical castration or medical castration can block testicular androgens, and oral antiandrogens can block gastric gland-derived androgens.

However, with the evolution of the disease, the androgen receptor will mutate, resulting in the ability of prostate tumor cells to biosynthesize androgens is improved, and the mutated androgen receptors are more sensitive to low levels of androgens. The disease state at this time is the castration resistance stage, and the patient has a poor prognosis and a short expected survival time.

At this stage, the main options for Western medicine treatment are: docetaxis chemotherapy, oral abiraterone or enzalutamide and other new endocrine therapies. However, prostate cancer is a kind of malignant tumor with great individualized differences, and the degree and duration of effectiveness of drugs also vary from person to person, so clinical cases often encounter cases where chemotherapy or abiraterone is ineffective for PSA decline.。

The author has treated the famous type of prostate cancer in the upper cases, and believes that the treatment of prostate cancer with traditional Chinese medicine has a definite effect, and it should be treated individually. The efficacy is mainly reflected in prolonging survival, improving quality of life, reversing or delaying chemotherapy and endocrine drug resistance, and allowing the survival benefit of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) that have failed endocrine therapy and chemotherapy.