Treatments for prostate cancer take a significant toll on male potency, leaving a surprisingly high percentage of men unable to have a normal sex life, new research shows.
The findings, based on a study of more than 1,000 men treated for prostate cancer at multiple medical centers, show that whether a man is able to achieve adequate erections after treatment for prostate cancer varies greatly depending on a number of individual variables, including his age, the extent of his cancer and the quality of his sex life before treatment.
Over all, fewer than half of the men who reported good sexual function before cancer had managed to regain it two years after treatment. But the chances of sexual recovery varied widely. After two years, some men had less than a 10 percent chance of achieving adequate erections after treatment, whereas others had a 70 percent or greater chance of a relatively normal sex life.
The results were not encouraging, but for the first time offer men a more personalized model for predicting sexual recovery after cancer treatment.
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