Author: Christopher Eden

During the past year, I and the other surgeons at Santis have been increasingly using real-time, frozen-section analysis of the prostate during surgery to allow us to maximise nerve preservation without compromising on cancer control (i.e. removing the cancer). This is part of our drive to deliver better cancer and functional outcomes for patients than…

One year on from the UK’s first Retzius-sparing radical prostatectomy, Christopher Eden shares his findings: 3x better continence rate and happier patients….

In the last year or so, I’ve spent quite a bit of time writing about choosing a treatment for prostate cancer, and even more time writing about life after treatment in terms of recovery of erections and continence. What isn’t often discussed is the actual operation itself, and the several weeks of recovery that follow…

Many of our patients have their prostate cancer diagnosed early, giving them an extremely high chance of a long-term cure with limited side effects, if any. Once they are diagnosed and they have come to terms with their condition, their mind soon turns to the best way to treat it. There is a lot of…

A recent publication in the Lancet of a randomised trial of 326 men (men were assigned randomly to either treatment to minimise biases) of open versus robotic surgery found that cancer control, continence and sexual function 3 months after surgery were similar in the two groups. So, what does this mean in practice? As is often…

One of the most difficult decisions for any man with prostate cancer is deciding what treatment would be best for them. Of course, they take advice from their urologist, but in my experience many also seek out information themselves, looking to established research and charities like Prostate Cancer UK for information on what treatments are…

Updated August 2017 with findings one year later: https://www.santishealth.org/prostate-cancer-information-centre/retzius-sparing-radical-prostatectomy-one-year-on/ In this post, I want to talk about a new technique in radical prostatectomy that I have been practising in my operations for some time now. As my patient results come in and considering other published results using the technique, it’s becoming clear that this technique –…

Introduction I often have patients ask if they should be taking Viagra before a prostatectomy to improve their potency after the operation, and if there are any benefits to it. My own experience (which is to be backed up by other scientific research on the matter) is that there is mostly no benefit to taking…