It’s a rite of passage that fills men of a certain age with dread: the digital exam for prostate cancer. But suffering prostate cancer is even worse — especially since the treatments come with the chance that the patient will experience either erectile dysfunction (ED) or urinary incontinence.
A new surgical approach now reduces the odds of those unwanted side effects, according to a report in The Lancet. A robot-assisted surgical method shows it can spare the periprostatic neurovascular bundles (key nerves that, if injured could lead to ED or incontinence).
The study had 190 participants receive the robot-assisted surgery (named NeuroSAFE) and another 191 underwent the standard surgical approach for prostate cancer. The NeuroSAFE patients had noticeably better outcomes both in terms of ED and urinary incontinence after 12 months.
“The erectile function benefit is enhanced in patients who would not otherwise have undergone bilateral nerve-sparing by standard practice,” ...
