Robotic surgery

jb,
Not sure about this except questions I would have:
1. is there a greater chance of accidently having free cancer cells loosened / missed by robotic verse having a pair of eyes looking right at the prostate verse through a camera with less resolution than a pair of eyes?
2. If, there is follow-up radiation on open verse robotic -- does it really matter? Robotic surgery would be less intrusive and healing quicker?
3. Has this been developed with any statistics on re-occurence of cancer with this method verse open?
4. Is hormone therapy used in concert with surgery , radiation? I was told by my doctors that having hormone therapy prior to (and after).... had the following benefits:
a. it starved the cancer of its food - the male hormone
b. it made the cancer more prone to be affected by the radiation
c. it physically reduced the size of the prostate requiring less radiation (I elected for seed implant- used only 55 radiated seeds verse the typical 120 due to hormone therapy, etc...

Your call, but I would ask a lot of questions and then, you will have to make a decision based on you. Not me or someone else who may have elected to have another procdure. Most times, you do not hear from the ones who chose wrong, only those that had success (at least in their case).

Ask for the names / phone numbers of patients that have had robotic surgery at least 2 years ago. Sure advancements have been made but how recent is this technique with prostate surgery?

My only concern with surgery is the possibility of having some of the cancer cells escape during all of the cutting, cautherizing etc... Which, is something I don't believe surgerons have adequately addressed when they push their choices.
Good luck and stay in touch.
Joe