Functional And Oncologic Outcomes Of Laparoscopic Vs Robotic Assisted Radical Prostatectomy: Contemporary Single Surgeon Experience

Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer
Also Included In: Urology / Nephrology;  Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 13 Jun 2008 - 11:00 PST

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ORLANDO, FL (UroToday.com) - A single surgeon's laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP), experience towards the tail end of his series was directly compared to his initial robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) by investigators from Montefiore Medical Center (abstract 996).

This group evaluated 75 patients who underwent RALP and had 12 months functional outcomes and compared them to the same surgeon's experience with 75 LRP patients. The two groups were similar in age, pre-op PSA, biopsy Gleason score and positive margin rate. However, the RALP patients were statistically significantly better than the LRP patients with respect to shorter hospital time (199 versus 232 minutes), lower estimated blood loss (230 versus 311 cc) and shorter length of stay (1.95 versus 3.4 days).

There was a trend to improved 12 months continence rates and potency in the RALP group, although these differences were not statically significant. Very importantly, despite a statistically higher incidence of pT3 disease and Gleason grade 7 in the RALP group, there was no difference in positive margin rates between the two groups.

Therefore, RALP is certainly equivalent, and may well be superior, to LRP for the minimally invasive surgical management of prostate cancer.

Presented by A. Ari Hakimi, MD, et al., at the Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) - May 17 - 22, 2008. Orange County Convention Center - Orlando, Florida, USA.

Reported by UroToday.com Contributing Editor Elspeth M. McDougall, MD, FRCSC

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