Manual prostatectomy?

Specialties Operating Room

Published

We have one urologist who apparently does radical prostatectomies almost entirely by touch, with almost no instruments (I haven't seen it yet but it's been described to me by an RNFA who I trust).

The surgeon makes his incisions then sticks in his "little Chinese fingers" and starts feeling around. The RNFA says that "at this point, you might as well go eat lunch, 'cause there's nothing for you to do". The doc works around all the tissues using his fingers alone and all of a sudden lifts out the prostate! What's more, he doesn't section the urethra-- he simply dissects the prostate off of it.

Has anyone seen this?

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We have two Uro's that will do this. Incision, exposure, finger, voila. As a matter of fact, one will warn the assistant not to get anywhere near the urethra because they might "take the fun part away" from him. Both are rather old school in technique. It gets the prostate out, but I am curious of the long term effects, like ED or incontinence. It's a little surreal to watch.

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Is there a name for this technique? I tried Googling "prostate manual dissection" and similar searches to get more info, but had no luck. It's all Da Vinci on Google

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"My" doc is back on thursday and I will ask if it is a specific technique, or just how he learned it in school.

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