Patients diagnosed with cancer.
Information about the disease and a positive attitude are keys.
Caracas, Venezuela, 2011-September Every patient has the right to know the disease that affects it, treatment options, risks, side effects and the process of healing.
Patients with prostate cancer diagnosed early and that they are treated surgically or with radiation therapy or with endocrine therapy may experience undesirable side-effects on the sexual and urinary tract area which could negatively impact their quality of life. There that is relevant to prepare them prior to treatment in a realistic about those side effects that could alter the results post operative.
The Dr Elias Mora Kumboz , specialist in Oncology Urology, stresses the importance of truthful information in the connection physician-patient. regardless of the technique used (open surgery, laparoscopic or robotic) or alternate treatments (external radiotherapy or brachytherapy) with any method of treatment used can have excellent resultsas well as also complications and unwanted side effects are minimized depending on the experience of the surgeon and the individual characteristics of the patient and his illness ”.
According to a study published in August 2011 in the Magazine Journal of medicine the rate of satisfaction after open or robotic surgery varies between 80 to 90%, while the rate of frustration or repentance stood between 10 and 20%.
Terms of doctor Mora Kumboz that that level of frustration or repentance is that patients did not receive a realistic explanation during the pre operative about what should wait after the operation.
Adds the specialist that much information disseminated on the Internet, those offered by the companies that mercadean the robot and some health centres, usually to give optimistic results exaggerating the benefits, minimizing complications and this can confuse the patient, do have false expectations about the results you will get once you undergo any of the treatments mentioned above.
A young patient who has the disease located within the prostate, and a good sexual function pre operative, doing the surgery technically correct, will recover its functions in the post operative in most cases. What sometimes happens is that the patient, but has an optimal sexual life, can you believe that with the surgery or the robot will improve your sexual function and is not the case because these surgery used to remove the prostate, not to improve sexuality.
Doctor Mora Kumboz quote in a poll of United States asked patients with localized prostate cancer if they would accept a treatment that extend their life expectancy, but running the risk of losing their sexual function: a 20% say that it would not accept and 40% would accept treatment unconditionallywhich means that the priorities are not equal for all people.
Positive
Doctor Mora Kumboz points out that when you communicates to the patient who has cancer, it thinks that it is a death sentence and is not as well. Is highly impacted, begins to find out, ask, and in that search gets contradictory information, and this makes to confuse more ”.
It is unlikely that a patient process all the information relating to the treatment and its consequences there the importance of the doctor-patient relationship, where the latter should become an active part in making decisions about treatment to choose, based on the accurate and honest information physician so that in the end the beneficiary be patient.
Adds that it is essential that the patient will have a positive attitude, enabling it to relieve stress, in the same way, it is important to have a religious or spiritual support because it has not only the scientific.
Patients with cancer should receive the support of a multidisciplinary team involving the urologist, oncologist, nurses, technicians, psychologists, therapists in Group and family.
Group therapy can be very beneficial because listening to the testimony of survivors, how have how to overcome the disease, it can help to regain hope. Although it is good to note that not all diseases are equal and not all patients react in the same way ” said.
The ideal is a positive attitude, explains Dr. Mora Kumboz, balanced, with a realistic expectation. Doctors have a responsibility to educate and inform patients. Better technology is the experience of the surgeon and the respect that it deserves the patient. The healing process requires much more than science, requires a mobilization of the positive life expectancy of the patient. ”
