Comment on DaVinci vs "by hand" ("open") prostatectomy. I'm a retired surgeon (not a urologist). Towards the end of my career, DaVinci robot became available @ my hospital. One of my younger colleagues jumped right in and trained on it. I did not, worrying that I might not have enough time left to get sufficiently skilled at it.

IMO from what I've seen and discussed with urologists, there's no question that the robot allows much more precision at the fine dissection needed to "tease" the nerves away from the prostate capsule. It takes longer, and requires the development of skill in technique. But if you can find a doc who's done at least 500 cases, you're better off with the robot.

That takes me to the risk of side effect of erectile dysfunction after surgery...a real problem for some men. Especially someone who has maybe 40 years of potential active sex life ahead of him.

There are many scare stories of ED, it does happen but I believe that it is much more preventable than commonly thought. Rather than go into a long discussion of how to manage that, I suggest searching on this forum and Google for penile rehabilitation after prostatectomy. Following a daily, multifaceted training program, I returned to full sexual function about 7 months after surgery @ age 74.