NERVE-SENSING MACHINE MAY AID PROSTATE SURGERY.Byline: Associated Press Prostate surgeons are about to get a new machine to help them avoid slicing vital nerves during cancer surgery - cuts that can leave their patients impotent. UroMed Corp.'s new CaverMap, unveiled Thursday, is similar to a metal detector: The closer the surgeon's knife gets to a nerve, the faster the machine beeps in warning. Some urologists welcomed the machine, saying even today's popular nerve-sparing prostate cancer prostate cancer, cancer originating in the prostate gland. Prostate cancer is the leading malignancy in men in the United States and is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer death in men. surgery still leaves too many men impotent because doctors have no precise map of the microscopic nerves. ``Their anatomic location - it's a guesstimate guess·ti·mate n. Informal An estimate based on conjecture. [Blend of guess and estimate.] guess ,'' said Dr. Dan Watson, a Charlotte, N.C., urologist Urologist A physician who deals with the study and treatment of disorders of the urinary tract in women and the urogenital system in men. Mentioned in: Congenital Bladder Anomalies, Lithotripsy, Men's Health, Overactive Bladder urologist who helped in the machine's early development at Harvard University. But just how big a help the CaverMap will be remains to be seen, cautioned doctors from the Food and Drug Administration and the American Urological Association. UroMed reported that in one study, 92 percent of prostate cancer patients had sexual function a year after surgery, a jump from the 30 percent potency rate the same surgeon achieved before he tested the CaverMap. But while the FDA FDA abbr. Food and Drug Administration FDA, n.pr See Food and Drug Administration. FDA, n.pr the abbreviation for the Food and Drug Administration. approved CaverMap as an aid in detecting key nerves, medical officer Dan Schultz warned that only 14 men stayed in UroMed's study for the full year. That is entirely too little data to predict whether good surgeons will notice much change if they buy the machine when it goes on sale next year, he said. ``It's not a replacement for a surgeon who knows how to do this operation,'' Schultz said. Still, ``It's certainly worth trying,'' said Dr. Michael Manyak, George Washington University's urology urology Medical specialty dealing with the urinary system and male reproductive organs. It traces its origin to medieval lithologists, itinerant healers who specialized in surgical removal of bladder stones. chairman and head of technology assessment for the AUA AUA American Urological Association, see there . ``One thing you'd like to eliminate is the component that you're accidentally or inadvertently dividing nerve tissue nerve tissue n. A highly differentiated tissue composed of nerve cells, nerve fibers, dendrites, and neuroglia. ,'' said Manyak, who called the preliminary study encouraging. ``I see no downside to using this.'' CaverMap is based on nerve-stimulation technology already widely used in delicate facial surgeries. An electronic sensor is wrapped around the penis. The surgeon holds the nerve stimulator in a small probe. When the surgeon stimulates a nerve, the sensor within 15 seconds can detect a reaction that is too small for the surgeon to see, said UroMed Chief Executive John Simon. If the surgeon probes a nerve, the machine beeps in warning. |
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