Not very good news for those suffering from prostate cancer … turns out the effects of radiation and surgery have a much greater effect on a man’s sex life than previously thought.
“For years, men facing prostate cancer surgery have been reassured by their doctors, who could cite studies in prominent medical journals, that their sex lives would be just fine after treatment,” according to the article, “The Side Effects? Well, There is One,” by Tara Parker-Pope in The New York Times, but now new research shows that, “Among men in the study who reported good sex lives before cancer, fewer than half were able to achieve normal erections two years after treatment.”
Taking age, erectile dysfunction, cancer type, and treatment into consideration, the chances of regaining the semblance of a pre-treatment “somewhat normal sex life can range from less than 10 percent to 70 percent or more.”
For more information to better equip loved ones making decisions regarding prostate cancer, read the entire article here.
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“The Side Effects? Well, There is One,” by Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, September 24, 2011.
