Robotic prostate surgeon, Dr. David Samadi gives a glimpse into one man’s choice to have robotic prostatectomy surgery following his early prostate cancer diagnosis.
Robotic prostate removal surgery is the only procedure that gives complete information about how much prostate cancer is present, what the margins are, and the status of the lymph nodes and seminal vesicles. Seed radiation, beam radiation, HIFU, and cryogenics do not provide these details about prostate cancer.
Dr. Samadi operates on one patient at a time from start to finish. He uses thesame surgical team on each procedure and is highly skilled in open prostatectomy surgery, laparoscopic prostate removal surgery, and robotic prostatectomy surgery.
We are gonna be doing a robotic prostate surgery. Here we have a gentleman who has newly diagnosed prostate cancer. Many options were discussed with him but the reason why he chose the removal of the prostate is because he wanted to know exactly how much cancer he has, he will know what the margins are, he will know the state of the lymph nodes and seminal vesicles. And the removal of the prostate is the only option that gives you all this information.
Not seed implants, not radiation, not HIFU, and certainly cryo is not a good option, freezing the prostate for primary diagnosis.
And now, using the robot, it is sort of bringing all the skills together, and that is really unique. You can not just be a technician and robotic surgeon without knowing the anatomy, without being an oncologist and without having laparoscopic skills.
So, people choose to have me operate on them because of the expertise in three fields, and that is really important. If the robot brakes or the computer does not work, I can use my laparoscopic skills or open surgical skills, so patients are safe.
The team factor is very important because I use the same team all the time. I have the same anesthesiologist, same circulator and we always do one surgery at a time. I do not think running through rooms and going from surgery to surgery is a good option for patients and outcome. So, one surgery, one team, one operation at a time.
Typically these cases take about one hour and a half, they stay one night at the hospital, they will have a catheter for a week and the outcome is superb, with no transfusion, no pain.
Watch one of Dr. Samadi’s patients talking about his experience with robotic surgery!