Medical Health Tests Medical Tests Radical Prostatectomy

Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy is a radical surgery. Thus, it is known as radical prostatectomy surgery. This surgery is a major surgery and is conducted under general anesthesia in an operating room. The urologist, in this type of surgery, surgically removes the prostate gland as well as the seminal vessels. There are three main methods of doing this surgery. It takes about two hours to do this surgery and can also take longer. A lot depends upon how skilled the urologist is. The patient might have to use a urinary catheter for a week after the procedure. Sometimes, patients might also have to use the catheter for a month or more. Radical prostatectomy is generally never done on me over the age of seventy as it can increase the complications.

Radical Prostatectomy Techniques

• Open radical prostatectomy or ORP: In this the surgeon is supposed to make an incision in the lower abdomen of the man and then dissect his prostate. The perineal approach, where the incision in made in the perineum is a variant of the surgery. But the latter is an uncommon procedure.
• Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy or LRP: In this, the urologist is supposed to make four half-inch incisions in the lower abdomen of the man. Tubes are inserted through this to manually remove the prostate.
• Robotic radical prostatectomy or RRP: This is also known as laparoscopic radical, and the instruments used in the surgery are remotely controlled by a device like a robot.

Patients often wonder if out of the three methods, one has better cure rates than the other. But all three procedures have similar results. However, if a patient gets operated when his cancer is in the initial stages, then he has a better cure rate than a patient who is operated in the later stages.

Post Radical Prostatectomy

A patient may not be totally cured because of microscopic capsule penetration or because the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, something that wasn’t detected during the surgery.

Advantages

The complications that can happen due to the surgery as well as the cure rate are same for all three types of surgery. The only advantage of the robotic surgery is that patients are discharged from the hospital in a day or two of the surgery, while in the other surgeries it takes four to seven days. Blood loss is also lower and the person might need lower transfusion.