Prostate size does not affect results of surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Prostate size affects the technical difficulty of radical prostatectomy -- total surgical removal of the prostate gland as a treatment for prostate cancer -- but not the functional results, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Dr. Joseph A. Pettus and colleagues analyzed outcomes in 3,067 men treated by 5 surgeons at their hospital. As they report in The Journal of Urology, each man had a radical prostatectomy without chemotherapy, hormone treatment or radiation therapy.

Reported prostate size was based on weight, which ranged from 15 to 389 grams. (For comparison purposes, 15 grams is the weight of 1/8 cup of flour, while a full cup weighs 110 grams.)

According to the paper, with increasing prostate size there were increases in estimated blood loss and time required for the surgery. The authors noticed that with increasing size, surgeons were more likely to remove every trace of the cancer.

But, the investigators found, there was no significant association between specimen weight and rate of side effects (including erectile function and urinary continence) or relapse 1 year later.

"Prostate size influences operative difficulty...but the increased difficulty does not seem to translate into worse functional results," Dr. Pettus and his associates conclude.

J Urol 2009;182:949-955.