These will depend on your age, health and the stage of your cancer. Your surgeon should discuss your individual situation and options with you.

Advantages

• If no cancer cells have escaped from the prostate gland, surgery will completely remove the cancer.
• The surgeon will remove your prostate gland and send it for testing so you will find out more about how aggressive the cancer is and how far it has spread.
• It is easy to measure the success of the surgery by monitoring the PSA level.

Disadvantages

• Prostate surgery carries the same risks as any major operation, such as bleeding, injury to nearby tissues and wound infection.
• Treatment involves a stay in hospital and a period of recovery afterwards.
• If the cancer has broken out of the prostate gland, the surgeon may not be able to remove all of it.

You may need further treatment with radiotherapy, hormone therapy or a combination of both if the PSA starts to rise.

Read our surgery fact sheet online for more information on advantages and disadvantages. There are some specific advantages and disadvantages to the different types of surgery.

You will have some tests before the operation to make sure you are fit for the anaesthetic. Your specialist may recommend pelvic floor exercises to help you recover from any urinary problems caused by surgery more quickly.

The operation takes two to three hours. You will have a general anaesthetic so you will be asleep during the whole process. The surgeon may do nerve-sparing surgery that avoids damaging the nerves that control erections.

You will have a follow-up appointment four to six weeks after the operation to discuss any side effects and to get the results of the surgery. If the surgery has been successful the PSA level will drop to the lowest possible reading (usually less than 0.1 ng/ml).

If your results show that the cancer has spread outside the prostate gland, you may be offered further treatment with radiotherapy or hormone therapy.

You will have regular appointments every three to six months to monitor your PSA level and any side effects.

There is more information about open prostatectomy and keyhole prostatectomy in our fact sheet, Surgery: radical prostatectomy.

The most common side effects of surgery are problems getting erections and passing urine. The risk of getting side effects depends on your overall health, the stage and grade of your cancer and your surgeon's skill and experience.

Men who have the keyhole operation usually get back to their normal day to day activities more quickly than men who have open surgery. However, the risks of side effects from all types of prostate surgery are similar.

Possible side effects include erection problems, penis shortening, infertility and problems passing urine. Your surgeon can tell you how common these side effects are in the men that he or she has treated.

You can read more about side effects in our fact sheet, Surgery:radical prostatectomy.

• What type of surgery do you recommend - retropubic, perineal, laparoscopic or robotic?
• How many of these operations have you done and how many do you do a year? (Individual surgeons should do more than five radical prostatectomies each year and each treatment centre should do more than 50 radical operations for bladder or prostate cancer in a year)
• How many of your patients need extra treatment for cancer after surgery?
• How long should I expect to be in hospital?
• What pain relief will I get after the operation?
• How soon will we know whether the operation has been a success?
• How often will my PSA level be checked?
• How many of your patients develop urinary or erection problems?
• Will you try to do nerve-sparing surgery if possible?
• What treatment will I have to help me get erections and when will I have it?
• If I have urinary or erectile problems after surgery, who should I contact for help?

You can find a list of references used to produce this page in our online fact sheet.