[Treatment of advanced prostate cancer]

The treatment against hormone relapsing prostate cancer was examined clinically, experimentally and by a review of the literature. Conventional systemic chemotherapy should be appreciated as one of the symptomatic treatment options; and suramin might be an effective chemotherapeutic agent, if severe and the wide spectrum of side effects were concurred. Intermittent administration of suramin is beneficial at present, with monitoring of its concentration in the blood. Some patients with wide spread bone metastases, especially if they are symptomatic, would be the candidates for hemiskeletal irradiation. Low dose of fractionated radiation was found to be more effective than high dose of single radiation. Bisphosphonate was found to protect bone resorption and destruction from the inoculated prostatic cancer cells in nude mice. In the clinic, the compound would be effective to the aggravation of bone metastasis, especially in combined use with irradiation.