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Aloha,
Well I did not get it right about prostate surgery. The sphincter associated with the prostate is apparently not removed and is located below the prostate. So after surgery you still have the bladder sphincter and the sphincter that provides orgasm.
Joe
You don't mention HIFU, and of course it would normally fall within the same category as radioactive seeds and cryo in that it kills all cells within the treatment area.
However, there are a number of surgeons who are experimenting with focal treatment using HIFU, in which only part of the prostate tissue is ablated. This is also called hemi-ablation. The advantage of focal treatment is that it gives an even better chance of retaining erectile function and full continence. The downside is that there may be micro-tumours which were undetected in the untreated tissue, which may go on to develop. Additionally, the overall longer term oncological outcomes following full HIFU treatment have yet to be fully demonstrated.
I had focal treatment on 30th October 2009 and my first PSA test about two weeks ago showed a reading of 0.4. Bearing in mind that I still have prostate tissue remaining this is very encouraging. I'm also happy to say that I have full continence and erectile function.
I don't want to make this sound like a commercial for HIFU, but hopefully it may be helpful for people to be aware of focal HIFU treatment.
