Prostate Cancer

In general, prostate cancer has no symptoms. But it's important to schedule an appointment with a Catholic Health physician if you are experiencing:

• Difficulty starting or stopping your urine flow
• Frequent urination, especially at night
• Inability to urinate
• Pain or burning during urination
• Urine flow that starts and stops
• Weak urine flow

Treatment of prostate cancer may require surgery to remove your prostate gland and the nearby lymph nodes. Catholic Health offers minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery using the da Vinci robot system.

The procedure requires small incisions in your abdomen. The da Vinci robot provides a high-definition 3D view of the surgical area. Your physician uses tiny instruments that move like a human hand but more smoothly and with a better range of motion.

The precision allowed by robotic surgery means your physician can avoid damaging healthy tissues and nerves.

Additional benefits of robotic surgery include:

• Faster recovery and return to normal activities
• Less blood loss
• Less pain after surgery
• Return to total continence sooner
• Shorter hospital stay

The da Vinci robot system is offered at Good Samaritan Hospital (West Islip, NY), St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center (Roslyn, NY), St. Catherine of Siena Hospital (Smithtown, NY) and St. Charles Hospital (Port Jefferson, NY).

Catholic Health offers radiosurgery using Varian Edge®. Radiosurgery uses focused beams of radiation to shrink and kill cancer cells. Although it is called surgery, the procedure does not require an incision. It typically takes one to five sessions over the course of one week.

Varian Edge® technology allows your physician to deliver precise doses of radiation exactly where it’s needed. This process is faster than more traditional treatment and does less damage to healthy tissues.

When compared to traditional radiation treatments, Varian Edge® radiosurgery provides the following benefits:

• Better visibility allows more precise placement of radiation
• Faster process takes less time to complete
• Highly targeted placement of radiation reduces damage to healthy tissues surrounding cancer cells
• No incisions and no hospital stay are required
• Quicker recovery with a lower chance of side effects
• Rapid return to regular activity
• Real-time tracking capabilities improve the efficiency and precision of your treatments

Varian Edge® is offered at Good Samaritan Hospital (West Islip, NY).

Stereotactic radiosurgery is a procedure that delivers high doses of radiation to cancer cells. Catholic Health offers Varian TrueBeam® for stereotactic radiosurgery. Varian TrueBeam® is an advanced technology that allows your physician to focus the radiation on cancerous tumors with accuracy and precision.

During treatment, the TrueBeam rotates around your body to deliver a prescribed radiation dose from nearly any angle. The radiation beam can be shaped to match your tumor. This reduces the damage to any nearby healthy tissue. The process is effective using 25% less radiation than other radiation treatments and is faster to complete.

Varian TrueBeam® provides the following benefits over Cyberknife®:

• High resolution real-time imaging provides precise targeting of cancer cells.
• Treatment can be performed in as few as five sessions and each session takes 15 minutes. Cyberknife® takes 45 minutes.
• Varian TrueBeam® detects cancer cells without metallic markers or trackers inserted into the treatment area. Cyberknife® cannot “see” the prostate and metallic markers must be implanted into the prostate transrectally prior to the procedure.

Varian TrueBeam® is offered at Good Samaritan Hospital (West Islip, NY) and St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center (Roslyn, NY).