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Experience Is Certainly Crucial When Contemplating Prostate Cancer Surgery |
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Experience Is Certainly Crucial When Contemplating Prostate Cancer Surgery
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By:
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 is most certainly true when it comes to prostate cancer surgery.
A significant problem with cancer is that, despite the best efforts of your surgeon, it has a bad habit of recurring in a number of cases. In the case of prostate cancer following the total removal of the prostate by radical prostatectomy recent studies show that, while the chances of a recurrence are around 18 percent when surgery is performed by a fairly inexperienced surgeon, this figure falls to under 11 percent in more experience hands. So just what do we mean when we talk about 'experienced hands'?
A recent study looked at just under 8,000 prostate cancer patients who underwent radical prostatectomy in the United States between 1987 and 2003 involving some 72 surgeons from 4 major academic cancer centers around the country.
The study showed that there is an extremely steep learning curve when it comes to carrying out prostate surgery and that it takes considerable practice to master this particular surgical technique. Indeed, the study revealed that it was not until surgeons had performed at least 250 operations that a marked improvement in outcomes was witnessed.
So just what can we learn from this study if we are facing the possibility of requiring prostate surgery?
First and foremost it is extremely important that patients choose a surgeon who frequently undertakes this type of surgery. Indeed, it could well be advisable to choose a surgeon who specializes exclusively in prostate surgery, or whose work revolves largely around such surgery. In most general hospital settings surgeons will perform such surgery very infrequently, perhaps as rarely as just once a year, and this is not enough to give them the expertise needed to provide you with the best possible change of a low recurrence rate.
Against this background therefore your first choice should without doubt be a specialist cancer treatment center and a surgeon whose work involves exclusively, or at least very largely, prostate surgery.
The study also revealed however that there is a significant improvement in recurrence rates not merely for specialist cancer centers, but also for teaching facilities. This is because, within the academic setting, a good deal of emphasis is placed on supporting mechanisms designed to assess the outcome of procedures and to provide feedback in an effort to create an environment in which continuous improvement is seen. This is not always the case in non-academic facilities. In addition, academic centers tend to attract people who are particularly interested not only in the outcome of their work but in both correcting their errors and improving their surgical technique.
So, should you find yourself in the unfortunate position of requiring prostate surgery then you would be well advised to choose to have surgery at the hands of an experienced surgeon working in a specialist cancer center housed within a major teaching facility.
ProstateProblemCenter.com provides information on prostate cancer symptoms and all aspects of prostate cancer including therapeutic prostate milking
Article Source: www.find-an-article.com/index.php?page=author&author_name=Donald Saunders
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