By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    physical health
    5 Ways Playing Games Can Improve Neural and Physical Health
    September 9, 2022
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    February 16, 2022
    healthcare organization
    5 Actionable Strategies For Healthcare Organizations
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
    August 20, 2025
    Hospital Pest Control and the Fight Against Superbugs
    August 20, 2025
    Hygiene Beyond The Clinic: Attention To Overlooked Non-Clinical Spaces
    August 13, 2025
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    4 Reasons Chris Cornell’s Death Raises Medical Ethics Questions
    December 19, 2018
    What If You Could Sell Your Vote?
    August 24, 2017
    The Sleepy American
    September 12, 2017
    Latest News
    How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
    August 22, 2025
    How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
    August 22, 2025
    How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
    August 22, 2025
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Prostate Surgery – Spare The Knife, Keep The Rod
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Policy & Law > Public Health > Prostate Surgery – Spare The Knife, Keep The Rod
Public Health

Prostate Surgery – Spare The Knife, Keep The Rod

gooznews
gooznews
Share
4 Min Read
SHARE

Who will tell the men?

Who will tell the men?

That’s what I wondered last week when I read the abstract about prostate cancer patients’ grim prognosis for normal sexual activity after surgery or radiation for their disease. The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.  Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times’ Well blog gave it a shot today, and led with an anecdote about a surgeon who blithely told one patient that 98% of his robotic surgeries turned out fine. Not exactly.

An accompanying editorial in JAMA distilled down the odds for a 60-year-old, overweight man who reported some sexual dysfunction prior to surgery. Such a person would have just a one in three chance of remaining sexually active after a nerve-sparing operation. His odds would be only one in seven if the nerves weren’t spared. Radiation fared better. It gave that person a 6 in 10 chance of maintaining normal sexual activity. Brachytherapy, where the radiation seeds are implanted in the prostate, had the best prognosis, an 8 out of 10 chance of retaining some semblance of normalcy in sexual activity.

More Read

Doctor/Patient Relationship: Too Much Information, Too Little Communication
The Developing World Uses Social Media to Promote Safe Sex
2013 AAOS Hot Topic Review
How Reframing a Problem Can Help Fix HealthCare: Patient Self-Management
King v. Burwell: A Frivolous Lawsuit

Of course, to achieve these outcomes, “this patient might require some assistance, most likely from a 5-phosphodiesterase inhibitor,” the editorial noted. Viagra and Cialis are drugs in this class.

Michael Barry of Massachusetts General Hospital, who serves on the board of the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making (FIMDM), concluded the editorial with a call for physicians to routinely sharing this information with patients so they can help decide which therapy to use.

A spinoff from work done at Dartmouth over the years on health care overutilization, FIMDM launched a for-profit arm called Health Dialog that works with insurance companies and health care delivery organizations to promote patients’ knowledge so they can participate in deciding their own medical fates. Can there be any doubt that if all prostate cancer patients became aware of the side effects of the various options for treating their disease, the number of patients who chose “watchful waiting” would rise exponentially?

Here’s what the Well Blog forgot to mention. According to the Prostate Cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT), which followed men identified with localized prostate cancer from prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing for 10 years, with half the group getting radical surgery and half following “watchful waiting,” there was no statistical difference in either all-cause or prostate cancer mortality among the two groups. Fewer than 10 percent of patients in either group died (a surprisingly low percentage given that the average age at the time of randomization was in the late 60s). And while there was a slight, non-significant 3% decrease of mortality in the surgery group, most of that was concentrated in those patients deemed at high risk based on analysis of their tumors and PSA scores.

What’s the moral of the story? When in doubt, don’t cut it out.

TAGGED:prostate surgery
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

travel nurse in north carolina
Balancing Speed and Scope: Choosing the Nursing Degree That Fits Your Goals
Nursing
September 1, 2025
intimacy
How to Keep Intimacy Comfortable as You Age
Relationship and Lifestyle Senior Care
September 1, 2025
engineer fitting prosthetic arm
How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
Health care
August 20, 2025
a woman explaining the document
How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
Public Health
August 20, 2025

You Might also Like

Disney Closes Fat Fighting Exhibit – Hurts Children’s Self-Esteem

March 3, 2012

The Latest Numbers on Exchange Enrollment

January 20, 2014
common foot pain problems shutterstock image
NewsPublic HealthWellness

Common Foot Problems and How You Can Solve Them

June 30, 2017
Public Health

The Funny (and Somewhat Embarrassing) Side of Medicine

April 29, 2012
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?