ABSTRACT
Patients attending for radical prostatectomy are typically middle-aged to elderly men. These men often have a number of comorbidities. The skill of the anesthetist is in recognizing those disease states that are chronic and stable compared to those which are deteriorating: the latter will need particular attention preoperatively in order to reduce overall risk. Common presentations include cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and/or features of the metabolic syndrome (central obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, and hypercholesterolemia). Ideally, these problems will have been detected at the pre-admission clinic and given suffi cient time to be addressed. Fortunately, prostate cancer tends not to be a disease process needing emergency treatment. In fact, the current trend to wait 6 weeks following biopsy before undertaking surgery provides the perfect opportunity to improve patient fi tness.
