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Health Alert: impotency treatment after prostate
cancer
January 14, 2004
Two years ago Ed Gross was diagnosed with prostate
cancer, "Hearing the words, it was a shock,
a surprise, you know, because we all hope that
it's not going to be that."
He was not ready to face surgery, so Ed chose
not to have it, in part to avoid impotence,
"I felt I had a lot of life to live yet,
and I wanted that quality, so it was not an
easy decision."
Doctor Gary Onik, a surgical radiologist, says
impotence is a real threat to men, "It's
really a devastating thing, particularly in
our society. I mean, our whole society is infused
with sexuality."
He says men don't need to feel helpless against
impotence, "There's no reason they have
to feel that way, because there are a lot of
methods for treating impotence now."
Thanks to drugs like Viagra, surgery doesn't
need to mean impotence. But, Doctor Irwin Goldstein,
a sexual medicine physician, says Viagra
is not a cure-all, "It works in lots of
people, but not everybody, and, if there is
a failure of Viagra, there are many, many therapies."
The new drug Cialis improves impotence in more
than 60 percent of men after surgery. Viagra
fails for 30 to 40 percent of prostate cancer
patients who try it, but another drug, Levitra,
helps nearly 50 percent of men who don't respond
to Viagra. Viagra, Levitra and Cialis
are all FDA approved.
"We need to make it like all other medical
fields. Deal with it logically and rationally
without the hullabaloo and the emotion."
Doctors and patients alike hope communication
and newer therapies will likely make surgery
easier to face.
source:-http://www.wistv.com
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