Let's compile a list of trifecta surgeons....

They've all swung and missed more than once. But once you comprehend that EVERY SINGLE CASE IS DIFFERENT, then this point is completely understandable...and you will then understand that it is experience that counts. You want someone who has seen it all, and has made the most of challenging, difficult surgery cases.

BTW, nobody has open RP these days unless they have other conditions that prevent RALP.

Good thing that you are not at the point of pulling any treatment trigger yet...you've got some "patient education" to work on first.

...

Halbert is correct. We don't "rate" physicians here, as there are certain liability potentials if ugly or negative comments are posted. We delete those.

And yes, I'll say good things about my surgeon.

Another point. There are "rock star" surgeons who have performed thousands of RALPs. I would want to make sure he the one who will actually be performing the surgery, and not just supervising it.

So what’s the trifecta? Continence, erections and???
My hubby had an excellent recovery... no ED and 99% dry from day one.
He befriended another guy who had surgery by the same surgeon on the same day ( they met in the waiting room)
This guy has been wearing full depends diapers and struggling with ED.
So you never know!!!

halbert said...
Leah: Trifecta is cancer free/fully continent/no ED.

And, you're right, you never know.

with surgery you never know.

The definitions of cancer-free, fully continent, and no ED are pretty subjective and the doctor’s definition is probably different than yours or what you hope it to be.

Cancer-free - How many years? A few years is meaningless in the larger scheme of things.
Fully continent - No pads, no accidents, no urgency? Over what time period?
No ED - Fully restored to your pre-op status without drugs or aids?

Some patients get better urinary functions after surgery so they are very satisfied with urinary function in surveys although they may have had continence issues for some period (your situation?)

Your objective is fine but there really is no way to provide helpful guidance on these issues. You need to ask the doctor for his stat’s on such items and his/her definition of them then how they apply to your situation. My doctors had some prepared sheets on the subject based on surveys of 500 surgery patients from 2011 that reported back over a few years. I had to ask questions because their data looks pretty good compared to what you hear about and you then find out about the definitions in the surveys and what the people are responding to. Most of us have done the endless surveys after surgery and know that data quality is only so good. If you did not get up during the night the day before, you answer that way. If you did for whatever reasons, you answer another way.

The group on this forum is not necessarily representative of surgery patients in general so that is another factor to consider. Maybe you can ask your question in a different manner to get helpful responses. When I was checking out recovery times, I found responses that indicated I could be biking the Tour de France in a month or so to it taking six months to recover fully (6 mos was the correct answer for me but my definition of fully recovered may be different than the next guy)

no, let's not compile a list of surgeons.

Instead, let's argue over what "trifecta success rates" really means ...

then let's digress into a flame war over which is better: RT or surgery ...

Back to the OP: TB, the truth is that there are great and near-great doctors all over. I ran into this myself on this forum--most of the big names are on the coasts--NY, California, Houston. There are many, many doctors who don't live, work, or practice there...and are relatively unknown outside of the profession--but they are just as good as the major names.

Where you'll find them, mostly, are at the major academically connected medical centers. There is an available listing called the NCCN Centers of Excellence--which is a listing of the best hospitals in the US for cancer treatment. If you're seeing someone at one of those places, you'll be with some of the best around.

"time to fully heal".....whatever that really means, a lifetime!

Physicians don't publicly publish their results for good reason.

Unfortunately, some decisions we take on gut feeling and faith.

Good luck on your search, pilgrim.

Just for kicks, I looked up the surgeon who did my RALP, and he is at the top of the list of surgeons in St. Louis--he has the best score on that database--for what it's worth.

Part of the challenge with this sort of thing is that it is ultimately statistical--and we all know in here that stats are great for 'big picture' understanding. However, we are individuals, and as individuals, we all have an equal chance of winding up on the bad side of any statistical summary.

BJ: This is clearly a medicare database and no time interval is mentioned...was it over 1 month, 3 months, 5 years? Highly limited value. So he did 87 medicare cases. How many non-medicare? Hundreds (4-1/2 years ago he told me he had "over 2500" RALP procedures.)

Regardless, I said I looked him up just for kicks for what it was worth--not much.