Diagnostic Center for Disease: Robotic Prostatectomy - A Race t...(cells at thesurface of the removed p...),Health

identical for all three procedures (open, laparoscopic and robotic

prostatectomy).(2)"

Concurrently, the leadership in Urology and academic institutions have for several years expressed concern regarding "over treatment" of prostate cancer. Retrospective studies have revealed that a very high percentage, exceeding 30%, of surgeries were performed for "insignificant" cancers.(3) In addition, physicians promote cure rates for robotic prostatectomy using statistics with only five years of data. The failure rates for treatments of all prostate cancers become quite significant by 7 to 10 years. Without any evidence for improvement in the rate of cure, surgeons are wagering on the hope that this new approach will deliver better results. As the numbers of treatments escalates, so will increased numbers of treatment failures and the devastating side effects that accompany them. A seemingly incongruous announcement in a policy statement released by the American College of Preventive Medicine last year recommended against routine prostate screening. Does this announcement have any connection to the alarming escalation of treatment? Their policy statement details concern regarding the PSA blood test as cause for false positive and false negative diagnoses. However, it also recognizes concern over the inability to improve outcomes, to cure cancer predictably, or improve upon the negative side effects.

The increasingly aggressive search for cancer by repeated needle biopsies will inevitably lead to more and more unnecessary surgeries, more failures to cure and a growing number of men and their families suffering from the devastating side effects of incontinence and sexual dysfunction. There exists no compelling evidence at this time that robotic prostatectomy will deliver any improvement whatsoever over the current poor rat
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