Surgical treatment of prostate cancer

Surgery is applied to cancer that has not spread.

Prostate cancer usually requires radical removal, which removes the entire prostate gland. This method is applied in about 36% of patients with locally advanced prostate cancer. Some risks that can be encountered during surgery are complications at anesthesia, surgical site bleeding, impotence accounting for 30 to 70%, urinary incontinence accounts for 3 to 10% of patients.

Recent advances in the field of cancer treatment have helped reduce complications of prostate surgery. The latest surgical techniques help reduce the incidence of impotence and incontinence.

After surgery, patients with impotence can be treated with sildenafil (Viagra) in pill form or injected with alprostadil (Caverject) into the penis, pump or device that acts on the penis (fake penis).

The urinary incontinence after surgery usually resolves over time, especially faster in patients who specialize in training and taking medicine to control urine incontinence. Sometimes urinary incontinence requires an artificial sphincter implant around the urethra. This sphincter can be made from muscle in the human body or from other material that controls the flow of urine through the urethra.