Hormonal Therapy (oncology) - Non-medical Hormonal Interventions

Non-medical Hormonal Interventions

In addition to the use of medication to produce tumor-suppressing endocrine alterations, destruction of endocrine organs through surgery or radiation therapy are also possible. Surgical castration, or removal of the testes in males and ovaries in females, have been widely used in the past to treat hormone-responsive prostate cancer and breast cancer respectively. However, these invasive methods have been widely supplanted by the use of GnRH agonists, and other forms of pharmacologic castration.

There are still situations in which surgical castration may be beneficial such as in special cases for women with high risk BRCA mutations.