Prostate Surgeon Strongly Urging Radiation, Says RP Could 'Put Me In Diapers the Rest of My Life'

These comments are very important for anyone considering surgery for prostate cancer.

After dealing with this issue for 12 years, I am convinced that prostate cancer surgery (prostatectomy) is no longer a proper option.

It is time, in my opinion, for urologist to turn in their scalpels (DaVinci or otherwise) and let the radiologist and oncologists do their job.

I know that this is a much debated subject, and some case can be made for reduction surgery, but studies tell us that surgery causes more problems than it solves. Studies also tell us that most men who had "successful" prostate surgery, didn't need it in the first place.

I know I would have been much happier for the past 12 years if I had avoided surgery first. I still suffer from erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence. I needed salvage radiation and will likely need further intervention in the future.

12 years ago surgery was still being touted as the "gold standard" (I haven't seen that term used lately) for treating prostate cancer. Fortunately we have also moved beyond blood letting and leeches as good medicine.

Too many doctors are making too much money ( Da Vinci ) to give up this out of date medical procedure. The bottom line is that thousands of men with 3+3=6 prostate cancer have had their sex lives destroyed to protect corporate and medical profits.

I know this is not what a 60 year old man with a new Gleason biopsy score wants to hear, but I believe it is the truth. I was never given the options that most of you have today. My Gleason 4+4=8 would not have been a candidate for observation, but several non surgical options should have been shared with me. Yes, I do think that the medical community let me down to protect their profits. I wish I knew then what I know now...

If I've learned anything in this forum--both my own experience and reading (and commenting) for over 3/12 years it is this:

Treatment decisions are extremely personal, and are made with all the personal baggage we all bring to the table. Our job, as I see it in here, is to make the effort to get newcomers to slow down enough to actually look at the options. To share what we know--both from data sources and from personal experience--and then, once the newcomer moves into decision territory, to support them as best we can in that decision.

In a long running post about treatment regret--and in numerous studies on the subject that have been referenced in here--the single greatest indicator of decision regret is NOT necessarily the outcome that a particular person had. It is whether they think they took the time and energy THEY needed to make a conscious and sane decision.

In other words, the patient who went from diagnosis by a Uro to the OR with that same Uro a few weeks later (even with a zero side effect outcome) is more likely to experience decision regret than the patient who studied the options, went with a treatment that seemed best at the time and then had a bad outcome.

I had surgery, and I studied the options that were available to me at the time and place that I was at the time. I made a careful and thoughtful decision, and I don't regret it.

Hi Jym62,

I will check my records and get back to you on the size of my prostate. But I doubt there are prostate size limitations for SBRT. I could be wrong, but I have not seen prostate size as a disqualifier for SBRT/Cyberknife.

Like me, you seem to still be in the low risk prostate cancer category which would make you a good candidate for SBRT. Were it not for my surgeon's warning about bladder complications I would have had surgery more than a year ago. I guess knowledge is power.

Cigar