Robotic Prostatectomy
IMPORTANT ARTICLES
Professor Costello's published articles on Robotic Surgery and Radical Robotic Prostatectomy … more
THE PROBLEM
Prostate cancer is rare in men below 40 years of age. Read what it is and the symptoms and risk factors involved. … more
THE PROCEDURE
What exactly happens while you are under anaesthetic? Go into the operation with your eyes open by reading about the procedure followed by Professor Tony Costello and his team.… more
VIEW THE VIDEOS
These videos provide an amazing insight into the operating theatre and what goes on. This is video of an entire procedure. … more
Robotic Surgery Update
At the end of 2007 we mark 4 years from the initiation of our program for robotic prostate cancer surgery at Epworth. This was the first program in Australia and one of the first in the world. I’ve now done over 400 cases here and internationally, and last year performed around 120 surgeries for prostate cancer using our da Vinci robot.
Our complications have been reduced from 12% in our first 100 cases to around about 2% in the last 300 cases. We have had no deaths related to our surgery. By comparison, open radical prostatectomy carries a complication rate of 10% and there is one death in every 200 surgeries.
Our progress continues in our ability to completely remove the cancer while preserving urinary and sexual function. We have now published the evolution of our technique over the first 400 patients and have reduced our positive surgical margin rate to 9%. This is in keeping with the best available figures from around the world and far below the rates reported in the community of around 25% and even up to 40%. Epworth continues to be at the forefront of publishing results and outcomes of surgery for radical prostatectomy. Last year we published a number of manuscripts and abstracts, along with two book chapters dealing with robotic prostatectomy.
I believe we have now a robotic program responsible for outstanding results with regard to return of urinary continence and preservation of sexual potency.
I have also established a bank of tissue generated by patients' willingness to contribute the cancer material to our pathologists for preservation. With this tissue we are looking at ways to determine the aggressiveness of the cancer, and also generate new ways of diagnosing prostate cancer which may be better than the PSA test. The Treasurer, Mr Wayne Swan, gave a 7.5 million dollar grant to my program here at Epworth to develop fundamental prostate cancer research and we are initiating that program in our laboratories here at Epworth this year. I’m sure you will hear more about it.
We will continue to improve our technique to try and reduce the side effects of our surgery over the next few years and this will be done in conjunction with our research laboratory to see whether we can understand better the biology of prostate cancer and methods to improve treatment. Also in our laboratory this year we are taking a drug for advanced prostate cancer into phase 2 testing in humans to compare it against standard treatment for advanced disease. We hold out very high hopes for the success of this drug in managing advanced prostate cancer. This drug was discovered by two of my scientific colleagues, Dr Corcoran and Dr Hovens, and myself, and we have been working on development of this compound for the past 5 years.