Prostate cancer specialists say demand is rising for "sexual rehabilitation" following radiotherapy or surgery to remove cancerous tumours that damage the ability of men to get an erection.
"It's the changing face of prostate cancer," said Dr Michael Lowy from Sydney Men's Health, who will address a cancer conference in Sydney on Tuesday.
"Historically it was mostly older men over 60 getting diagnosed and they were losing their ability to have an erection anyway so it was often lost altogether.
"In these times men would just get their prostate out and accept that they're impotent.
"These days there are many more younger men being diagnosed, men in their late 30s, 40s early 50s who have a very good chance getting their erections back, and we're really noticing that."
He said demand for erection medications such as Viagra and Cialis had climbed among cancer patients, as had requests for penile injection therapies - an aid for men with more severe nerve damage.
"All patients will have erectile dysfunction after their cancer treatment but those who recover the best long term are under 60," Dr Lowy said.
Almost 19,000 Australian men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year, and 3,000 die from it annually.
Cancer Council Australian chief executive Professor Ian Olver said increased publicity about the disease had increased diagnosis among younger men, but inaccuracies in the standard prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test was creating problems.
"The test picks up tumours but does not give any indication of how they will go on to behave, so you are going to be over-treating people by diagnosing more," Prof Olver said.
"If you diagnose a disease that arguably might not have caused any problems and treat it and cause severe side effects you're not really doing anyone a favour."
Current guidelines do not recommend regular population PSA screening but rather advise testing on a case-by-case basis.
