Given that patients with localized prostate cancer now routinely survive for a considerable longer period of time, evaluation of patients’ quality of life after its treatments has been as important as evaluating their quantity of life. Consequently, it is critical to gain a better understanding of all the facts that could influence both the short-term and long-term functional performance and health-related quality of life in patients with prostate cancer. In this study we evaluated the quality o life for patients receiving the da Vinci Robotic Radical Prostatectomy (RRP). From April 2009 through March 2010, 37 patients who received the surgery at a medical center located in central Taiwan were recruited into our study. Questionnaires measuring patients’ sexual functions, urinary functions, and quality of life were administered to these patients at one day before the surgery and three months after. Scoring differences between the pre- and post-treatment were analyzed to assess if the RRP was associated with higher functional performance and better quality of life. Findings indicated that, for these 37 patients underwent the RRP, no significant differences in their sexual and urinary functions were observed three month after the surgery. However, we did find improvement in some of their general quality of life measures three months after. We recognized that, due to time limitation, we could only compare the patients’ baseline scores with those of three month later. We speculate that a longer recovery time may be needed for significant improvements in functional performance and quality of life among patients receiving the RRP.
