Dr. Zachary Klaassen discusses what patients can expect after prostate cancer treatment, explaining how recovery and side effects differ between surgery and radiation therapy. He emphasizes the importance of survivorship care, including PSA monitoring, managing urinary and sexual side effects, and supporting patients' overall quality of life.

Dr. Sherita King:

Now that you got them through the treatment, what are your steps after treatment? Because you mentioned some side effects. What do you do with those patients?

 Dr. Zachary Klaassen:

So, I'll step back a little bit. The way that I counsel these patients is you have to choose a treatment option that is reasonable from a cancer standpoint, but also understanding and being accepting of potential side effects. And so these manifest themselves very differently.

 Dr. Zachary Klaassen:

So the way I explain the side effects after surgery are, if you have the prostate removed, everything starts at zero. So your ability to hold your urine in or have continence goes back to very little at that time after the surgery. Same as the sexual function or the erectile function. That goes down to zero as well. And so over time, these sort of slowly build themselves up. And I know we'll get into a little more detail about what level those get to after surgery.

 Dr. Zachary Klaassen:

With radiation, typically everybody starts at where they start out, whether it's okay, whether it's excellent function, whether it be sexually or continence wise. And then over time that sort of fades down. And I think that's an important message. The radiation is affecting that same pelvic musculature and nerves as the surgery is. It just takes longer for it to happen.

 Dr. Zachary Klaassen:

And so, once I get them through that treatment, then we sort of embark on the cancer survivorship. And I think the cancer survivorship includes expectations for quality of life, whether it be physical, sexual, spiritual, mental. And we sort of address all of those domains. And from a urologist, from a cancer standpoint, obviously my job is to understand what the PSA surveillance will be. Usually every three months we'll get a blood test for the first year, and then moving that out to six months for year two and three. And then annual after that.

 Dr. Zachary Klaassen:

But then embarking on having partners, sexual medicine partners that then help me treat them and discuss with them the side effects and how we can get them back to their peak performance that they had before treatment.