Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
What you can expect
By Mayo Clinic staffOpen prostatectomy usually takes an hour and a half to three hours. It's done as an inpatient procedure, and generally requires a stay of two to three days in the hospital.
Before surgery, your doctor will give you one of two kinds of anesthetics:
- A general anesthetic, which means you'll be unconscious during the procedure
- An anesthetic injected into your spine, which means you'll be conscious but you won't feel any pain
During the procedure
Once the anesthetic is working, your doctor may want to look at the prostate wall with a viewing scope that's inserted through the tip of your penis (cystoscopy).
Your doctor will place a tube into your bladder to drain urine (catheter). After your surgery area has been shaved and sterilized, your doctor will make a cut (incision) below your navel. Depending what technique your doctor uses, he or she may also need to make an incision through the bladder to reach the prostate.
If you also happen to have a hernia or bladder problem, your doctor may also use the surgery as an opportunity to repair it.
Once your doctor has removed your prostate, you will have two temporary drain tubes inserted through punctures in your skin near the surgery site. One tube goes directly into your bladder (suprapubic tube), and the other tube goes into the area where the prostate was removed (pelvic drain).
After the prostate has been removed and the tubes are in your bladder and the prostate area, your doctor will close the inside and outside of the surgery site with stitches or staples.
After the procedure
- In the recovery room, your drainage tubes will be monitored carefully. Your doctor may inflate a balloon inside the bladder to put pressure on the surgery area to stop bleeding. To keep blood clots from forming, your doctor will have saline solution constantly irrigate the bladder.
- You will be given intravenous (IV) medications to control your pain, and you'll have stockings and compression devices on your legs to prevent blood clots.
- Your doctor may remove your urinary catheter before you return home; or you may need to keep it in place for a few more days after surgery.
- On the day after your surgery, your doctor will have you walk around and continue regular exercises to move your feet while you're in bed.
- Most men can go home two or three days after surgery. When your doctor thinks it's safe for you to go home, the pelvic drain is taken out. You may need to return to the doctor in one or two weeks to have staples taken out if your doctor used them to close the surgery area.
- The suprapubic tube into your bladder will stay in for several days after you go home. Usually, it's removed at your doctor's office or at the hospital about five days after surgery.
Make sure you understand the post-surgery steps you need to take, and any restrictions. You'll need to resume your activity level gradually. You should be back to your normal routine in about four to six weeks.
You'll need to see your doctor a few times to make sure everything is OK following your surgery. Most men see their doctors after about six weeks and then again after a few months. If you have any problems, you may need to see your doctor sooner or more often.
Most men can resume sexual activity in six to eight weeks after surgery. After prostatectomy, you can still have an orgasm during sex, but you'll ejaculate very little or no semen.
- AUA guideline on the management of benign prostatic hyperplasia: Diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Baltimore, Md.: American Urological Association. http://www.auanet.org/content/guidelines-and-quality-care/clinical-guidelines/main-reports/-management/chapt_1_appendix.pdf. Accessed March 12, 2009.
- Han M. Retropubic and suprapubic open prostatectomy. In: Wein AJ, et al. Campbell-Walsh Urology. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/128042617-3/0/1445/92.html?tocnode=54305512&fromURL=92.html. Accessed March 25, 2009.
- Seur E, et al. Open prostatectomy is still a valid option for large prostates: A high-volume, single-center experience. Urology. 2008;72:90.
- Cunningham GR, et al. Surgical and other invasive therapies of benign prostatic hyperplasia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed March 12, 2009.
