How to treat androgen-resistant prostate cancer

A very good friend of mine has prostate cancer. Recently, the doctor said it is androgen resistance. What is going on? It is said that there is still no effective treatment. What should I do? Thank you!

After a period of hormone treatment, the disease of prostate cancer patients goes through a stagnation period and becomes insensitive to hormone treatment, at which point the cancer turns into androgen-resistant prostate cancer.

Generally, prostate cancer patients can be diagnosed with androgen-resistant prostate cancer if they stop taking anti-androgen drugs for at least 4 weeks (bicalutamide requires 6 weeks of discontinuation), plasma testosterone reaches castration levels, and plasma PSA values ​​increase for 3 consecutive times at 2-week intervals.

The mechanism of androgen resistance has not yet been clearly elucidated. The main hypotheses are: under low androgen levels, hormone-resistant prostate cell clones selectively grow, while androgen-sensitive prostate cancer cells undergo apoptosis, forming a tumor dominated by androgen-resistant cells; the androgen receptor mutates, causing the anti-androgen drugs that originally have an inhibitory effect to stimulate the androgen receptor and promote the growth of prostate cancer cells; prostate cancer cells adapt to an androgen-free or low-concentration androgen environment; the signal transduction pathways of prostate cancer cells change, and other bypass conduction pathways appear.

Once prostate cancer progresses to the hormone-resistant stage, the median survival time is 12 to 18 months, and there are very limited effective treatment methods. The current standard treatment for androgen-resistant prostate cancer is chemotherapy. At the same time, Chinese medicine can be used to regulate the body, inhibit the growth and proliferation of cancer cells, and reduce the toxic side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In addition, if the patient's bone or soft tissue tumor lesions continue to progress, even if the PSA value does not increase, it should be classified as androgen-resistant prostate cancer.