Chemotherapy can be used to treat prostate cancer. But, prostate cancers are less sensitive to chemotherapy than to hormonal therapy. So chemotherapy is not usually used while hormonal therapy is working.

Hormonal therapy can be very effective at controlling prostate cancer that spreads to the bones (metastatic prostate cancer). So, for most men in this situation, treatment usually involves a combination of hormonal therapy to control the cancer and radiotherapy to help with any bone pain. An additional benefit of hormonal therapy is that it tends to cause milder side effects than chemotherapy.

Men may be offered chemotherapy if they:

• have prostate cancer that is no longer being controlled by hormonal therapy
• are well enough to cope with the side effects.

When chemotherapy is used to treat prostate cancer the most commonly used drugs are docetaxel, mitoxantrone and epirubicin.