Experience Is Certainly Important When It Comes To Prostate Cancer Surgery Article

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Experience Is Certainly Important When It Comes To Prostate Cancer Surgery

Practice can make perfect when it comes to most things in this life and prostate cancer surgery is certainly no exception to this particular rule.

Author: Donald Saunders

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With the majority of things in life it is fair to say that the more practiced and experienced you are the better your performance will be and this would certainly seem to be the case when it comes to prostate cancer surgery.

A major problem with cancer is that, in spite of the best efforts of your surgeon, it has a bad habit of returning in a number of cases. when it comes to prostate cancer following the removal of the prostate through radical prostatectomy recent studies have revealed that, while the chances of a recurrence are around about 18 percent when surgery is performed by a fairly inexperienced surgeon, this figure falls to under 11 percent in more experience hands. So exactly what do we mean when we talk about 'experienced hands'?

A recently conducted study examined just under 8,000 prostate cancer patients who underwent radical prostatectomy in the United States between 1987 and 2003 involving a total of 72 surgeons from 4 major academic cancer centers around the country.

Interestingly enough the study found that there is a very steep learning curve when it comes to performing prostate surgery and that it takes a significant amount of practice to master this particular surgical technique. Indeed, the study showed that it was not until surgeons had performed at least 250 operations that a marked improvement in outcomes was witnessed.

So exactly what can we learn from this study if we are facing the prospect of having to undergo prostate surgery?

First it is extremely important that patients select a surgeon who regularly performs this type of surgery. Indeed, it might well be advisable to select a surgeon who specializes exclusively in prostate surgery, or whose work revolves largely around such surgery. In many general hospital settings surgeons will perform such surgery very infrequently, perhaps as rarely as just once a year, and this is not sufficient to provide them with the expertise necessary to provide you with the best possible change of a low recurrence rate.

Against this background therefore your first choice should undoubtedly be a specialist cancer treatment center and a surgeon whose work involves exclusively, or very largely, prostate surgery.

The study also revealed however that there is a marked improvement in recurrence rates not merely for specialist cancer centers, but also for teaching establishments. This is undoubtedly because, within the academic setting, a good deal of emphasis is placed on supporting mechanisms to assess the outcome of procedures and to provide feedback in an effort to create an environment in which continuous improvement is seen. This tends not always to be the case in non-academic facilities. Also, academic centers tend to attract people who are especially interested not simply in the outcome of their work but in correcting their errors and improving their technique.

So, should you find yourself in the position of requiring prostate surgery then you would be well advised to choose to have surgery at the hands of an experienced and practiced surgeon who is employed in a specialist cancer center within a major teaching facility.

About Author

ProstateProblemCenter.com provides information on prostate cancer symptoms and all aspects of prostate cancer including the therapeutic use of prostate massage

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