Sometimes called the male version of breast cancer, 200,000 men in the United States are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year.

If you are a man and live to be 80 years old, there is an 80-percent chance you will get prostate cancer. In fact, it is the most common cancer in men.

How your doctor chooses to treat your cancer is determined by your age, general health, and the likelihood that the cancer will cause trouble.

But since the use of robots for prostate cancer was FDA-approved in 2000, a Columbia University study shows that it has become the gold standard across the country.

Sixty-five-year-old Stan Hynek's Rolling Prairie home is a tribute to his passion -- toy and pedal tractors.

Stan Hynek

"I just strip them down, take them down to bare metal, redo them, put new wheels, new paint, new decals on them -- build them like the original tractors," he explains.

Still working in sales and as a LaPorte County trustee, Stan's hundreds of toy and pedal tractors have been written up in Toy Farmer Magazine.

Like the magazine, each piece in Stan's home tells a story.

"The Oliver Super 88 came from… the lady was from South Bend -- she was president of the Oliver union in the mid sixties," Stan recalls.

But Stan's story changed in October when he was told he had prostate cancer.

Because it was caught relatively early, Stan's options were radiation, hormones, or surgery -- including a minimally invasive robotic procedure.

Having already lost his wife and survived open-heart surgery and bladder cancer, Stan was ready to fight his latest challenge head on, with the help of a robot called da Vinci.

Stan and urologist Dr. Carl Walker agreed to let photojournalist Don Schoenfeld and me follow his robotic surgery from start to finish.

Dr. Carl Walker

We first met Stan with his three children in the early hours of the morning at South Bend's Memorial Hospital.

Nurse Judy introduced herself and prepped Stan for the surgery. At around 7:30 a.m. he was taken to the holding area and met with Dr. Walker one last time before surgery.

It may sound like science fiction, but Dr. Walker's plan was to perform the surgery with the help of 3D imaging.

"The patient will be on a cart, basically, with a robotic arm that -- through small little ports in the abdominal wall -- will be managed laparoscopically," he explains. "As the surgeon is moving his fingers, it's moving the arm, the small microscopic instruments within the abdominal wall."

Stan's anesthesiologist checked in and the nurses worked to keep the mood light. While confident, there were the usual pre-surgery jitters.

After saying goodbye to his children, it was time for Stan to head into surgery.

Even though the procedure is minimally invasive, it still takes a full surgical team. They methodically went through all the checks and balances and began the procedure.

"We're just inflating the abdomen right now with CO2. This allows us to put the trocars in," explained the doctor.

Trocars are pointed instruments that were inserted into Stan's stomach area through six small incisions.

The surgical team then began moving the da Vinci robot into position.

With the precision instrument, Dr. Walker took a look inside Stan's abdomen to make sure the trocars were in the right place. The device's cameras allowed him to see an image that had been magnified ten times.

With the robotic arm over Stan and the abdomen inflated, Dr. Walker put the tiny instruments -- which he would use to remove Stan's prostate -- through the trocars.

Operating the da Vinci

"Those small trocars that we placed, that's all the instrumentation we will be using to dissect the prostate and remove it," he explained.

Then it was time for this surgeon to move across the room where -- with his hands, stocking feet, and a robot named after the renowned painter Leonardo da Vinci -- surgery took on a different art form.

"It's like a video game, basically," Dr. Walker remarked.

A very detailed video game, perhaps.

For more information about robotic prostate surgery, visit davinciprostatectomy.com.

To reach Dr. Walker's office at the South Bend Clinic, call 574-243-4450.

To read about the Columbia study titled "Evolution of robotic radical prostatectomy," search for Cancer [2007 NOV 1;110(9):1951-8]

For part one of this series, visit the story titled Robotic prostate cancer surgery in Michiana - Part 2: The procedure