Urinary incontinence and sexual impotence after radical prostatectomy

Telephone interviews concerning urinary continence and sexual potency in 152 men who had undergone radical prostatectomy for localized cancer were conducted by an investigator who had not been involved in the patients' treatment. The obtained data were compared with the surgeons' recorded follow-up notes. Continence was defined according to ICS criteria and potency as the capacity for vaginal penetration. At the interviews, 74 men (49%) reported total continence and 39 others (26%) were acceptably dry; 32 required more than two small protective pads per day, five had received an artificial sphincter implant and two had supravesical urinary diversion (Kock pouch), making 39 (25%) classified as incontinent. The surgeons' records, however, showed an 89% continence rate and 87% of these men had regained continence within 24 weeks of the operation. Of 134 preoperatively potent men, only 21 (14%) remained potent in the first postoperative year. That earlier reported excellent results regarding continence and potency were not reproduced in our study, possible was partly due to our inclusion of more advanced tumours in somewhat older patients, but the fact that the interviewer was independent of the surgeon significantly influenced the results.