Asbestos Mesothelioma Blog

Surgical castration (or bilateral orchidectomy) is the simplest and cheapest method to reduce a man’s testosterone levels for good. It involves removing both testicles during a short surgical procedure and this brings about an irreversible drop in testosterone levels. This method of reducing testosterone is the most rapidly effective, with levels dropping by 90 percent within hours of the operation.
The surgery itself can be performed either as day surgery or may require a night in hospital. Most men have a general anesthetic so that they are unaware during the procedure. However it can also be performed with a spinal anesthetic, where the patient feels nothing from the waist down, or more rarely a local anesthetic where an injection into the scrotum numbs the tissues before they are cut. A small cut is made in the scrotum. The blood vessels that supply the testicle and the vas deferens, the tube that carries the manufactured sperm back into the body prior to ejaculation, are tied and divided, then both testicles age removed. The scrotum is then sewn up again. So that the scrotum does not look empty some urologist will put in silicone plastic wishes them. A dressing will be put over the scrotum to prevent excess bruising or post-operative bleeding and this can be removed the following day. Most patients are discharged within 24 hours.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Cancer Treatments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.