Prostate cancer patients may become impotent after surgery

A new study published in the Sep 2010 issue of Actas urologicas españolas found the chance for a prostate cancer patient to become impotent after receiving treatment depends on the type of surgery.

The study led by Ruiz-Aragón J and colleagues from Agency for Health Technology Assessment of Andalusia, Ministry of Health, Government of Andalusia, Seville, Spain found radiotherapy is more friendly to prostate cancer patients than surgery in terms of their effect on impotence.

Among different types of surgery, robotic surgery seems to post lowest risk of erectile dysfunction (22%), followed by laparoscopic surgery (40%) and the highest risk was found with open radical prostatectomy (41.4%), according to an analysis of data from 29 case series.

An analysis of data from observational studies showed robotic surgery was associated with lowest risk of erectile dysfucntion in prostate cancer patients (3 to 51%), compared to 36 to 91 percent for radical surgery.  Laparoscopic surgery resulted in even higher rate of impotence.

The current study was based on data from 10 observational studies with moderate quality and 29 case series with low quality, published from 2000 through 2010 in major medical databases like Medline and Cochrance Library.

The researchers said the quality of the studies are generally low, but both types of studies showed robotic surgery resulted in the lowest rate of sexual impotence among three  types of surgery for prostate cancer patients. 

Prostate cancer is diagnosed in about 200,000 men and kills about 35,000 each year in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute.

By Jimmy Downs