Southeastern Urology prides itself in providing the best comprehensive urologic care to the men and women of North Central Florida. Our practice specializes in the most up to date treatments for a variety of urologic conditions including prostate cancer, bladder cancer, prostate health, female and male urinary incontinence, kidney stones, and sexual dysfunction. We understand that these issues can be uncomfortable for some patients. However, our promise is to provide you with the utmost confidential and professional standard of care. Our goal is to provide the highest quality urologic care with respect and compassion.

Our urologists combine skill and experiences to provide services for a variety of urologic conditions. We perform a variety of same-day surgical procedures in the privacy and comfort of our office. We offer the latest minimally invasive procedures for prostate enlargements including microwave and laser technology. We also provide minimally invasive outpatient procedures for incontinence such as Interstim testing (bladder pacemaker), female and male urethral slings, and collagen injections. Other procedures can be performed in the privacy and comfort of the same-day surgery center such as non-invasive kidney stone lithotripsy ("stone blasting").

Southeastern Urology also offers minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery for a number of urologic conditions. Laparoscopy is a much less invasive form of surgery that uses a small telescope to visualize internal organs through a small opening. Our urologists have performed hundreds of laparoscopic procedures including total and partial kidney removal, pyeloplasty for congenital kidney obstructions and adrenal gland removal. We routinely utilize the da Vinci surgical robotic system to perform prostate and kidney surgery.

These new minimally invasive techniques and surgical systems provide a shorter recovery time for the patient in addition to minimal scarring. These advances will allow you to get back to what matters most, your life!

"There is lower morbidity, less pain, less blood loss, and the patient is back to normal activity earlier, and there's increased precision, as well," said Rifkin, who is among the urologists who perform robotic surgery using the da Vinci system for patients at North Florida Regional Medical Center.

"It should be considered as the No. 1 option for the majority of men."

About 60 percent to 70 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer require active treatment, as opposed to active surveillance, said Rifkin.

Robotic surgery, or robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, is minimally-invasive, laparoscopic surgery, and has become the standard of care, he said.

Using the da Vinci system allows a surgeon's hand movements to be translated into the motions of tiny instruments. Instead of a large cut, several small incisions are made to conduct the surgery.

"We see in a three-dimensional field. It allows us to do sophisticated surgery," said Rifkin, "and with prostate surgery, minimize the damage."

First used in prostate surgeries in 2000, the da Vinci system is now installed in more than 1,500 hospitals worldwide, according to Intuitive Surgical, the maker of the system. Today, about 3 out of 4 prostate cancer surgeries in the U.S. are performed using the system, according to the company.

Traditional, open surgery requires an incision of eight inches or more from the naval to the pelvic bone to remove the prostate. The surgery can mean blood loss requiring transfusions and a recovery time of six weeks or more. Negative side effects, as with other types of prostate surgery, can include incontinence and impotence.

About 90 percent of robotic surgery patients are usually out of the hospital the next day, Rifkin said.

"There is a high chance of cure with a robotic prostatectomy," he said.

A study, published in 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that Medicare patients who underwent surgeries involving robotics and other techniques using small incisions experienced shorter hospital stays and fewer complications than traditional surgery.

But the study also found a higher risk for incontinence and impotence, issues that arise from prostate surgery due to damage to the nerves surrounding the prostate.

Robotic surgery has the potential, with advances in imaging and smaller instruments, to perform better at avoiding damage to those nerves than traditional surgery.

"Patients love da Vinci, and most do very well," Rifkin said.

For more information or to schedule an appointment with a Southeastern Urology physician, call us at (352) 333-5400.