An expert in robotic surgery says that he has developed a new technique that allows doctors to know how prostate cancer develops over time without the loss of tissue architecture.

Dr David Samadi, chief of robotics at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York says the technique allows no that there is no loss to the tissue architecture of a prostate gland for a week after it is surgically removed.

"This tissue architecture is what holds the clue to why certain therapies work and others don't, which is why the best model is the intact, live prostate gland," Samadi said. "This is an exciting development in prostate cancer news because it can help scientists better predict how living prostate glands will respond to therapy in a controlled environment."

The technique is based on tissue-culture technology that is used to repair the DNA damage following cancer.

"This knowledge could eventually help scientists develop therapies to target these DNA repair proteins and eventually help them test the response of experimental drugs on prostate cancer tissues," Samadi said.