Hormone therapy
Treatment that starves cancers which grow in response to a hormone, mainly oestrogen in breast cancer and testosterone in prostate cancer, by lowering the hormone or blocking its receptor.
About 70% of breast cancers carry the oestrogen receptor and most prostate cancers depend on the androgen receptor; drugs either stop the hormone being made (aromatase inhibitors, GnRH analogues, abiraterone) or block the receptor (tamoxifen, fulvestrant, enzalutamide), and newer agents degrade the receptor outright (elacestrant, vepdegestrant). Hormone therapy is given as tablets or injections for years, has fewer acute side effects than chemotherapy, and prevents many recurrences; its limits are resistance, when the tumour mutates the receptor or bypasses it (hence combining with CDK4/6, PI3K or AKT inhibitors), and long-term effects on bone, mood, and sexual function. 'Castration-resistant' prostate cancer is disease that keeps growing despite testosterone suppression.
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