Save Your Life, Shrink Your Penis?

Not well informed when it comes to the various treatment methods for prostate cancer? Your penis may pay the price for it. 

In a recent study published in the journal Urology, researchers found that men who underwent treatment for prostate cancer complained that their penis was smaller afterward. 

Physicians completed surveys on 948 men who had been treated for prostate cancer and suffered a recurrence of the disease—hoping to get an idea of the adverse side effects associated with their treatment. What they found: 25 of those men, or 2.63 percent of the group, complained their manhood was lacking length. 

When it came to the various treatment options that led to the loss, 3.73 percent of the men had undergone radical prostatectomy (which is the surgical removal of the prostate), while 2.67 percent had radiotherapy plus androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). 

And even though 25 men may not seem like a huge number, this isn’t the first study that’s looked into this adverse effect, explains Paul Nguyen, M.D., lead study author and a radiation oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in Boston. 

“I think what our study brings home is that this is a real problem and it does affect men,” says Nguyen. “Many of the guys who underwent treatment for their cancer had never even heard about this effect—so this is something that we, as doctors, should be talking about with our patients.” 

So how much shrinkage are we looking at? In Nguyen’s research, the subjects reported a loss of only one centimeter, or roughly one third of an inch. But there’s been additional research published in the Journal of Endourology that’s shown some men lose between 2.5 to 3.5 centimeters after treatment, which is over an inch, says Nguyen. 

As for why this phenomenon is taking place, the researchers don’t have a concrete explanation. “In terms of surgery, we can only assume that since you’re cutting out the prostate and putting things back together again, there’s a little bit of tugging there,” says Nguyen. And with the hormones, there’s probably some type of shrinkage, or some type of fibrosis occurring that could result in a change in size, he says. 

“We can only hope the new results encourage both patients and doctors to bring the issue up,” says Nguyen. Because if guys are more informed about what to expect post-treatment, it may help them decide which treatment option is better for them, he explains.

Source : MensHealth