Prostate Cancer Treatments in 2026
Professor Phillip Stricker AO, MBBS(Hons), FRACS(Urology) is a urologist and one of the leading experts in the management and treatment of prostate cancer in Australasia. He is the Director of the St Vincent’s Prostate Cancer Centre, Chairman of the Department of Urology at St Vincent’s Private Hospital and Clinic and the Clinical Director of the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre in New South Wales (NSW). He is also a professor and associate professor at numerous recognised Institutions, University of Western Sydney, University of NSW and University of Sydney.
His clinical practice is dedicated to the management and treatment of prostate cancer, focusing on personalised care. This includes initial consultation, second opinions, therapy and follow-up of all post-treatment side effects, including erectile dysfunction and incontinence.
In 2006, Prof Stricker commenced the first robotic program using the latest technology (Da Vinci Si) in NSW at St Vincent’s Private Hospital. He has since performed almost 3000 robot-assisted radical prostatectomies. This is the second largest experience in Australia and the largest in NSW. In addition, previously, he has performed over 4000 open radical prostatectomies. This combined experience is the most in Australia. He also has extensive experience in performing high-dose rate brachytherapy (over 1000 cases), low-dose rate brachytherapy (over 1000 cases), designing and managing structured active surveillance programs and transperineal biopsies (over 10,000 cases).
Prof Stricker was the Head and Chairman of the Uro-oncology Multidisciplinary Team meetings for over 20 years.
He has been one of the Australian pioneers in the use of multiparametric MRI and PSMA-PET scan imaging and the introduction of focal therapy using irreversible electroporation-IRE (Nano-Knife) to treat prostate cancer, and has performed over 800 cases.
He mentors nationally and internationally, and has published over 40 articles on nanoknife technology and outcomes. He also has extensive experience in dealing with impotence and incontinence assessment, and treatments including penile prosthesis, sling surgery and artificial urinary sphincter surgery.
Professor Stricker’s area of research focuses on the collection of quality of life data following treatment in order to refine surgical techniques, the development and assessment of novel surgical techniques which are less invasive, the introduction of new technologies for treating prostate cancer, and the utilisation of medical imaging for the detection and evaluation of prostate cancer.
Professor Stricker was the driving force in setting up the St Vincent’s Prostate Cancer Clinical Database and Tissue Bank in conjunction with the Garvan Institute, which is currently housed at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre. These resources contain extensive clinical and pathological outcome data and have resulted in a comprehensive scientific and clinical resource that has been acknowledged both nationally and internationally.
Professor Stricker was a Member of the Australian Cancer Network working party that developed guidelines for the management of localised prostate cancer, metastatic prostate cancer, and PSA Testing. These guidelines have been published and are used as the evidence base in many publications. Professor Stricker has authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications.
Prostate Cancer Treatments in 2026
What Are The Aims of Treatment?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What are the aims of prostate cancer treatment?
I suppose the next real factor in surgery is to find out what are we aiming for? Well, we're clearly aiming for cancer eradication, urinary control, avoiding damage to the sphincter, and erection recovery, avoiding damage to the erection nerves. Now, as well as that, we're aiming to get a quick recovery and have no major side effects. We call these five factors the pentafecta. Now, every surgeon should know what his pentafecta is. He should know how long the operation takes, how quickly the patient gets out of hospital, how many side effects occur, what his positive margin rate is in cancers which are contained to the prostate. Should also know his continence rate, and what continence means is pad free. And he should also know what the chance of erection recovery is. And my God, there are so many definitions of erection recovery, but let's keep it simple. Erection recovery means you can have intercourse most of the time with or without a tablet. If they answer yes to that, then that means they've got erection recovery. You also have to be honest about how long it takes to get erection recovery. It can take up to two years, and this needs to be very clearly stated to you, the patient, but it also needs to be known by the urologist with a realistic expectation so that there's no regret in that situation.