J Korean Med Assoc.  2012 Jul;55(7):629-634. 10.5124/jkma.2012.55.7.629.

Can robotic surgery be a standard procedure in the treatment of prostate cancer?

• Kim CS
• You D
• Jeong IG

• KMID: 2192724
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2012.55.7.629

Abstract

Despite the wide diffusion of robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALP) as a surgical approach for clinically localized prostate cancer, no randomized controlled trial has been performed to compare RALP to radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP) or laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP). Because it is difficult to perform a randomized controlled trial to determine the risks and benefits of RALP, we focused on the results of systematic reviews of the published literature to compare the perioperative complications, functional outcomes (continence and potency), and oncologic results (surgical margin status and biochemical recurrence) among RRP, LRP, and RALP. With regard to perioperative complications, RALP seemed to be superior to RRP and LRP. With regard to the functional results, RALP showed a tendency toward early continence and potency recovery, compared with RRP. With regard to the surgical margin status, RRP and RALP showed mixed results, but RALP tended to show favorable results in organ-confined disease. Experts have obtained good results whether they performed RRP or RALP. Consequently, experts have been continuing to debate this issue. The higher cost associated with RALP was another criticism, especially in Korea. Because most of the published studies had low quality of evidence and were underpowered to prove the superiority of any surgical approach, a special effort to standardize the research methodology is required. Further high-quality, prospective, comparative studies, integrating specialized research methodology may give us a vital clue about the value of RALP.

Keyword

Prostatic neoplasms; Radical prostatectomy; Robotics; Evidence-based medicine

MeSH Terms

Diffusion
Evidence-Based Medicine
Korea
Prostate
Prostatectomy
Prostatic Neoplasms
Research Design
Risk Assessment
Robotics

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