[Minimal invasiveness of laparoscopic radical prostatectomy: reality or dream?]

Currently, radical retropubic prostatectomy is the standard procedure for clinically localized prostate cancer. The surgical technique has been continuously refined for decades, resulting in reduced morbidity and improved functional and oncologic results. Since the late 90s, radical prostatectomy has been increasingly performed laparoscopically. A search of the available data has found that the articles published so far have proven the feasibility of the laparoscopic procedure but never confirmed its less invasiveness. In accordance with previous studies that have evaluated the invasiveness of various open and laparoscopic procedures, our clinic, which has routinely performed both techniques for several years, addressed the question whether laparoscopic prostatovesiculectomy indeed induces less severe surgical trauma. This prospective nonrandomized comparison study of the University Clinic of Urology at the Martin-Luther University at Halle-Wittenberg recruited a total of 64 patients, who underwent laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (n = 32) or open retropubic prostatectomy (n = 32) from January 2003 to April 2004. Both patient groups were comparable as to preoperative staging, PSA value and Gleason score. Besides perioperative parameters, such as surgical time, intra- and postoperative complications, blood loss and transfusion rate, need for analgetics and length of hospital stay, the comparison included oncologic data, such as Gleason score, pathologic stage and numbers of positive specimen margins. To get objectively reproducible data, the range of the systemic answers concerning the surgically induced tissue trauma was recorded as laboratory data. In all patients, pre-, intra-, and postsurgical markers of the acute-phase C-reactive protein, serum amyloid A (SAA), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) were measured. The transfusion rate was 6 % for laparoscopic prostatectomies and 12 % for open prostatectomies. A rectal tear had to be intraoperatively repaired in one laparoscopically operated patient. The postoperative use of analgetics was comparable in both groups. The median hospital stay was 12.4 days for the laparoscopic and 11.2 days for the open surgical group. For T2 tumors, positive specimen margins were found in 6 cases (17 %) of the laparoscopic and in 4 cases (12 %) of the open surgical group. As to the indicators of any systemic reaction, no significant difference could be found during the entire clinical course between both surgical methods. In comparison with patients who underwent conventional open prostatectomy, patients with laparoscopically radical prostatectomy had identical to slightly higher serum levels of the acute-phase parameters, as evidence of an equal or a discretely manifested systemic response to the surgical trauma. The so far assumed less invasiveness of laparoscopic radical prostatectomy is not objectively supported by the data from this study. Thus, surgical trauma and its linked invasiveness must be considered equal for both methods, at least for the time being.