1. The Surgical Oncologist

For decades, any surgeon was considered competent to exercise all surgical skills, including cancer surgery. Indeed, while most surgeons may be acceptably competent, the specialty of surgical oncology is increasingly important. The surgical oncologist is most often the first specialist to see a patient before other oncologic specialists.

Surgical procedures for cancer are often complex and technically demanding. Studies have shown that patients have better outcomes, the lowest complications and death rates when they are treated by experienced surgical oncologists. In addition, cutting-edge techniques can often provide superior results over tried-and-true methods that have been around for many years.

Surgical oncologists are clinical scientists with knowledge of and experience in cancer surgery that come from additional training, limitation of the scope of general surgical practice, familiarity with the biology and natural history of cancers, and the role of the other oncologic specialties in their diagnosis and management.

Posted at 2:53AM on Jul 26th 2007 by Gregory D. Pawelski

2. Surgical outcomes are the combined result of surgeon's trainig and expirience, in addtion I would like to point out the importance of adequate preop evaluation and an anesthetic itself. Patients are poorly prepared in a lot of cases since MD anesthesiologists see them for the first time on the day of surgery. Preop evaluations are performed by either the surgeons (overorder preop tests), or PMPs (order wrong or insufficient tests). we've been working on the preoperative softeware that will be available for free through www. surgerytomorrow.com - noncommercial patient education and surgery preparation website. Use it and enjoy.

Posted at 8:49PM on Jul 27th 2007 by imdoncall

3. Merv Griffin certainly had an interesting and eventually very successful career.

I am interested in prostate cancer for personal reasons and wondering if anyone knows in the case of Mr. Griffin:

1. The type of treatment he initially received and what follow-up treatment might have occurred.
2. His PSA at diagnosis, surgery, Gleason score, etc. These stats are very helpful to those people who are dealing with prostate cancer themselves.

Posted at 4:12PM on Aug 12th 2007 by Canadian Cancer Patient

4. I had a radical prostectomy in 2000. I seached out for one of the best surgeons. William Catalona has probably done 6000 or more nerve sparing radical prostectomies. I would recommend him and he is at Northwestern University.

Posted at 12:52PM on Aug 13th 2007 by Jack