Better surgical outcomes for prostate cancer patients
Dr Ye Dingwei from the Shanghai Cancer Center in surgery.
As a result of specially-designed surgical methods, local medical experts are able to not only precisely treat prostate cancer but also protect male physical function, experts told a prostate cancer forum over the weekend.
Almost all patients in the early stages of prostate cancer can achieve five-year survival, which means clinical recovery.
What's more, 97 percent of patients have good function over urinary control and more than 70 percent have sexual function, according to experts from the Shanghai Cancer Center.
This is based on data from more than 6,000 early stage prostate cancer patients.
"There are over 110,000 new cases of prostate cancer in China annually," said Dr Ye Dingwei, director of Shanghai Cancer Center's urinary surgery department.
"Compared with Western countries, more Chinese patients are detected in late stage with a lower five-year survival and poorer life quality.
"Even though early-stage patients can receive surgery to remove the cancer, the after-surgery complications like a poor control on urination and lost of sexual function are their biggest worry. With the rise of life standard, more patients want to achieve a good surgery result and good life quality as well."
The prostate is close to the urinary tract and sexual nerve plexus, so about 95 percent of patients can suffer sexual dysfunction and 50 percent short-term urinary incontinence.
"How to remove the cancer while keeping patients' function is doctor's top concern," said Ye.
His team has created an innovative method in line with Chinese' physical structure with a combination of surgical robot to achieve better treatment results.
In addition to developing the precise surgical method, local medical experts are also leading clinical research to build a China-made robot.
"The Chinese-developed robot will be more suitable to Chinese patients," he said.
"Combined with the surgical method developed by our doctors, we are confident we will achieve more high-quality surgery in the future."
