Ovarian And Prostate Cancer Essays Example

Cancer is a highly lethal malignancy. Ovarian cancer in woman is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States and takes the lives of over 140,000 women worldwide. Despite intensive research efforts directed towards improving the detection and treatment of ovarian cancer, the long-term survival of women with ovarian cancer is only modest. The various factors that hamper the progress in the treatment of ovarian cancer are late diagnosis, absence of highly curative chemotherapy and a high degree of molecular heterogeneity in ovarian tumors . The process that treats ovarian cancer is cancer chemoprevention. It is the use of chemical agents, such as natural, synthetic or biologic in order to arrest or reverse the process of carcinogenesis, while the cells are dysplastic or preneoplastic.
The age-specific incidence of ovarian cancer increases with age and is infrequent in women below the age of 40 years. The median age of diagnosis is 63 years and 48 percent of the patients are 65 years or older. In African-American women, the average incidence is 10 per 100,000 while in white women, it is 13 to 15 . Increased oral contraceptive use accounts for the decreasing incidence and mortality rates among the younger women when compared to the older women. Women with advanced stage ovarian cancer under the age of 45 years have a 45 percent survival rate when compared to 13 percent of the women aged between 65 and 74 . The number of recorded deaths due to ovarian cancer is relatively stable in the United States in the past decade. Genetics plays an important role in determining the occurrence of ovarian cancer.
The benefits of chemoprevention are apparent as the costs and morbidity associated with the treatment are immense. The apoptosis pathway is the most important mechanisms for cancer prevention. Activation of apoptosis leads to the efficient disposal of cells that have undergone irreparable genetic damage and thus prone to neoplastic transformation. Apoptosis-inducing agents destroy the premalignant cells instead of arresting or slowing down their growth. Moreover, the administration of an apoptotic chemopreventive lessens the long-term exposure to the agent thereby decreasing the toxicity as well as chemoresistance. The apoptotic therapy has the potential to decrease the long-term effects by lowering the dose of the preventive . Progestins are potent chemopreventives for ovarian cancer.
The protective effect increases with the use of estrogen-progestin combination preparations and persists for as long as 20 years after the discontinuation of use. The biological effect related to progestins is a major mechanism underlying the cancer-preventive effect. Furthermore, vitamin D has a spectrum of biological effects in epithelial cells that may lead to ovarian cancer prevention, including growth retardation, induction of cellular differentiation, induction of apoptosis and many others . Surgical staging in ovarian cancer has the potential to prevent the disease, however, it eliminates any possibility of future childbearing. A combinatorial chemopreventive strategy is an optimal way to prevent ovarian cancer while minimizing the risk of failure due to dysplastic cells that are resistant to one or more preventive agents.
Prostate cancer is one of the major problems worldwide, especially in the developed countries of the western world. It is the common type of cancer among men and the second leading cause of cancer deaths. Early detection and the treatment of prostate cancer reduce the burden of the potentially disabling disease. It is primarily a disease of elder men as more than 85 percent of the cases of prostate cancer are visible in men older than 65 years. Also, men aged 85 years old have a life-time risk of developing prostate cancer. High-risk countries of prostate cancer include United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden and France . The medium-risk countries include most of the Asian countries. Several elements of dietary practices play an important role in the prevention or progression of prostate cancer. Men over the age of 65 years have higher complications of risks associated with the treatment of prostate cancer.
Numerous treatment options are available for patients suffering from organ-confined, locally advanced and metastatic prostate cancer. Hormonal treatment is a preferred option in patients with locally advanced prostate cancer or in the setting of the relapsed disease. The standard endocrine treatment for prostate cancer administers female hormones, such as estrogen or medroxyprogesterone acetate to inhibit androgen-regulated tumor growth . However, the side effects of estrogen therapies include the development of secondary characters, such as breast development, impotence and loss of libido. Surgery involves retropubic and perineal methods, which have a great risk of impotence in men. Radiation therapy is another mode of treatment in patients with locally advanced prostate cancer.
Estramustine is a chemically conjugated antineoplastic agent that combines estradiol with nornitrogen mustard, which is an effective drug in the treatment of metastatic cancer . Mitoxantrone is a palliative treatment for metastatic cancer. Docetaxel when used in combination with prednisone reduces metastatic cancer. The treatment with drugs demonstrates a significant survival advantage over the mitoxantrone drug. Radical prostatectomy is a gold standard for the treatment of organ-confined prostate cancer. Cryosurgical ablation of the prostate is a minimally invasive surgical approach for the treatment of prostate cancer. External beam radiotherapy is an alternative to the surgery for men with clinically localized prostate cancer . Prostate brachytherapy is an excellent cancer control for men with low-grade, low-volume prostate cancer.

References

Banerjee, S., & Kaye, S. B. (2010). New Strategies in the Treatment of Ovarian Cancer: Current Clinical Perspectives and Future Potential. Clinical Cancer Research , 961.
Heidenreich, A., Bellmunt, J., Bolla, M., Joniau, S., Mason, M., Matveev, V., et al. (2011). EAU Guidelines on Prostate Cancer : Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Clinically Localised Disease. European Urology , Volume 59, Issue 1, pages 61-71.