The estimated cure for patients with can reach up to 98%. The evaluation is by the robotics supervisor of the Department of Minimally Invasive Therapy of the (Brazilian Society of Urology), Gilberto Laurino Almeida.
According to the doctor, the result depends on the stage of the disease, the type of cancer and when the patient was treated.. “At the beginning of the disease, the chance of a cure is high. If you were treated with the disease at a more advanced stage, the chance is lower”said the urologist.
The (National Cancer Institute) estimates 71,730 new cases of prostate cancer in Brazil this year. After non-cutaneous cancer, this type of cancer is the one with the greatest frequency and impact on the male population. Data from the Ministry of Health’s mortality information system reveal that, in 2023, 17,093 deaths from the disease were recorded, which means 47 deaths per day.
Campaign
Almeida highlighted that men need to take care of themselves. This is the motto of the Blue November 2025 Campaign, which the institution is about to launch. “It’s not just the prostate. There’s a whole concept of health behind it all. It’s the man’s health that’s at stake; not just the health of the prostate. To live longer, men need to take better care of themselves”. He said that today, people live longer and better.
“And if the man is not included in this context, he will clearly lose years of life due to some preventable diseases, such as prostate cancer. The cure, as I said, reaches up to 98% but, for that, it has to be diagnosed at the initial stage”, he stated
The Blue November campaign aims to make men remember this information and seek out a urologist. One of the difficulties highlighted by the SBU specialist is that men are not in the habit of visiting the doctor frequently, as is the case with women in relation to the gynecologist.
As part of this year’s Blue November Campaign, the SBU will carry out a group of services in Florianópolis (SC), on the 12th, within the 40th Brazilian Urology Congress, which will be held from the 15th to the 18th of November. The task force will raise awareness about prostate cancer and subject many men to evaluation for this type of disease. If some are suspected of having prostate cancer, they will be referred for a biopsy. If the biopsy confirms the cancer, men will be directed to the best treatment.
According to the doctor, between 85% and 90% of prostate cancer cases are sporadic, that is, they do not have a family origin. What is called prostate cancer prevention is for a man to consult his urologist at least once a year. “He is preventing a late diagnosis in order to obtain a cure. It is an extremely curable disease, as long as it is treated at the right time, in the initial phase. If we catch a tumor in the initial phase, we cure most of them”.
THEIR
Currently, robotic surgery is the most adopted by urologists to remove prostate tumors. Almeida celebrated the Ministry of Health’s decision to incorporate robot-assisted radical prostatectomy for the treatment of patients with clinically advanced prostate cancer within the scope of the Unified Health System. According to the ministerial order, technical areas will have a maximum period of 180 days to implement the offer in the SUS.
Almeida stated, however, that “although we are all aware that this technology is excellent and that it should be included in the SUS for patients to access and benefit them, we clearly understand that the timing was a bit slow for this to happen because there is no robot in the SUS to care for these patients. Or there are few”.
As he explained, it is a very expensive technology. “It takes a long time for hospitals to buy (the equipment), install and train the teams. So, today there is this gap between what was approved and what will actually happen and that we, in fact, don’t know”.
According to the expert, in general, hospitals do not have the financial means to purchase a robotic platform at the moment. He believes that the preparation of the SUS hospital network will take much longer to become a reality than the 180 days established by the Ministry of Health for the provision to patients by technical areas. “And not everyone will have access”he stated.
When asked whether prostate cancer patients could undergo this procedure with a robot in private hospitals affiliated with the SUS, the doctor informed that this will largely depend on the dynamics in which this process will be implemented.
“There are other surgeries that were introduced within the scope of the SUS and to date have not occurred because these surgeries require equipment, require materials that are disposable. All of this has not yet been standardized or regularized.”
He cited ureteroscopy as an example, which is an endoscopic surgery used to remove kidney stones. “It’s also a high-cost procedure. It came under the scope of the SUS but, to this day, we don’t do it because all the processes for using disposable materials and everything else are not regularized”. In the case of prostate cancer in the SUS, he reaffirmed that there are not enough robots in Brazil for all hospitals, nor trained teams. “Everything wasn’t ready”.
Robotics
Robotic prostate cancer surgery is similar to laparoscopic surgery. The procedure includes portals that are placed in the patient’s abdomen or chest, depending on where the surgery will take place, through which equipment called forceps enter. The forceps are attached to robotic arms that are manipulated or coordinated by the surgeon, who is seated outside access to the patient, in a place called a console. However, there is always another surgeon next to the patient who assists with the procedure. Robotic surgery allows the surgeon to have an expanded 3D view and more precise control of movements.
Laparoscopic surgery differs from endoscopic surgery, in which the equipment (tweezers) enters the patient through the urethra, to scrape the prostate, when there is no cancer there. Almeida reaffirmed that patients with localized prostate cancer undergoing surgery have an estimated cure rate of up to 98% in tumors without metastasis.
With information from .
