There are mainly two treatments for prostate cancer – radiotherapy and surgery. Robotic surgery has advent in the last 10 years or so and it revolutionized the medical field. It is the surgery, which is done by robotics. It is also known as minimally invasive surgery, as there is no need to make any large cuts during this process.
Prostate gland
The prostate is only present in men. The work prostate does in a man’s body is mainly to nourish his semen. It is present underneath the bladder in men and helps in the control of urinal continence.
Robotic prostatectomy
The whole prostate gets removed during the surgery by using robotic arms penetrating the abdomen. This procedure takes a few hours usually. It is performed under genuine ascetic. A patient often comes in the morning and the whole surgery can be performed until the afternoon. The patient is free to go home on the following day after being observed by a doctor.
How conventional open prostatectomy is different from robotic prostatectomy?
As its, name defines it is done via an incision on a person’s abdomen or an incision that goes directly through a person’s naval, whereas the robotic approach is different from this. In robotic prostatectomy, there are multiple tiny incisions through which robotic arms perform their surgery while urologists control this whole process.
Benefits of the robotic prostate cancer surgery
- Keeps nerves intact – During the traditional surgery, there are more chances of nerves and blood vessels around the prostate getting damaged. However, in robotic surgery there are monitors in front of the Surgeon, so he can visualize those nerves easily. It allows them to spare those nerves and keep their quality alive, and even regain their erectile function properly after surgery.
- There are 93% chances that a person will regain his urinary continent after surgery. Most people regain their ability to control urine within 2-12 weeks, depending on factors including previous health, prostate size, and age.
- After robotic surgery there will be only 5-6 surgical incisions on your body, which will be far less visible as compared to the traditional surgery where you have one big midline incision.
- quicker healing, less pain, and reduced risk of infection are the major advantages of robotic prostate surgery. This means a person can go home quicker and sooner and less time in the hospital.
- Less blood loss is a great benefit of robotic prostate surgery because of the less incisions made during the surgery.
How long recovery takes?
The major benefit of robotic prostate cancer surgery is that patients got recover promptly. Most patients who had surgery would be fine to go home the following day. Once the operation is performed patient starts to recover over the first few weeks.
Any person who was a sportsman before his surgery gets to recover quickly and can go to live their normal life within a week. Although a person feels fine soon after his surgery, is advised by Boston’s robotic Prostate Cancer Specialist to take 6 weeks off from their work.
