Incontinence is probably the most dreaded ramification of radical prostatectomy. But fortunately, when the operation is performed by an experienced surgeon, it’s also among the rarest. In one Johns Hopkins study of 593 consecutive patients, 92 percent had complete urinary control after surgery. The remaining 8 percent had some stress incontinence (urine leakage at certain [...]

Doctor A is a nice, personable young doctor, whose empathy for your condition appealed to you immediately. That’s great. Now what else do you know about him? Is he a board-certified urologist? What training has he had? Does he know—and use—the nerve-sparing techniques, the anatomical approach to radical prostatectomy? How many of these operations does [...]

The findings in surgery determine the course of the operation—more or less tissue is removed, depending on what the surgeon sees when the body is opened up. If, for example, there is any hint that the cancer has escaped the prostate along the nerve bundles that lie on either side of it, these nerves should [...]

If the PSA is greater than 10, all of these men are likely to have significant cancer remaining, and all should have definitive therapy before it’s too late. What about the patients in the middle, with PSA levels between 1.o and 10—the range for about half the men with T1 disease? Currently, there’s just no [...]

So: If a man has localized disease, the big, blunt question is, How long is he probably going to live? Nobody wants to think about this question, but there it is. Let’s go back to our 65-year-old man. He’s in otherwise good health, and he can reasonably expect to live at least ten more years. [...]

But the fact of the matter is that nowadays casual sex is too dangerous, for it increases the risk of AID S. And, to put it bluntly, AIDS kills. Having casual sex also increases your chances of getting other STDs that can have serious consequences. For instance, a girl or a woman who has even [...]

If the other people you know have already started going out and you haven’t, you may begin to feel that these things won’t ever happen to you. If so, it helps to remember that, sooner or later, you will find someone special. People always do! It also helps to remember that just as we have [...]

When we talk about sexual intercourse in class, we often find questions about sexual crimes in the Everything You Ever Wanted to Know question box. So we want to tell you something about this subject, in case you too have questions about it. Parents sometimes worry about bringing up the topic of sexual crimes with [...]

NON-SPECIFIC URETHRITIS (NSU) ‘Vaginitis’ means ‘vaginal infection’ and ‘non-specific’ means that the doctor can’t find a specific organism that is causing the infection. The chief symptoms are an abnormal, foul-smelling discharge and redness or itching of the vulva. Treatment is usually by means of oral medication. Here again, though these infections may be bothersome, they [...]

Even after they’ve heard the information given in the previous pages, the boys and girls in our classes still have many questions about contraception. Is it legal for teenagers to have birth control? Do you need your parents’ permission to get a method of contraception? Under the terms of the 1969 Family Law Reform Act, [...]