Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy: a critical analysis of surgical quality

To review the literature and answer the question of whether the laparoscopic approach meets the quality standards.

We conducted an extensive Medline literature search. The articles obtained and the experience at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center were used for interpretation and critical analysis of results. Long-term quality indicators are oncologic efficacy, potency rate, and continence rate. Short-term quality indicators are blood loss and transfusion rate, hospital stay, postoperative recovery, and rate and severity of complications.

Long-term quality indicators. Oncologic efficacy. Despite recent evidence that pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) at radical prostatectomy may be necessary to detect occult positive lymph nodes, and that extended node dissection may also have a positive impact on disease-free survival, PLND is rarely performed during laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP), which may have a negative impact on the long-term recurrence-free probability. Positive margins rates range from 11% to 26%, ranging from 6% to 8% for organ-confined disease and from 35% to 60% in those with extraprostatic extension. Most of these data include the first patients operated on when the technique of LRP was in early development. These rates seem high as compared to the contemporary data achieved in retropubic radical prostatectomy. Short-term biochemical recurrence rate have been published by only two centers and generalization to the whole laparoscopic patients and to long-term results are at present time hazardous. Functional outcome. Given the complexity of measuring, interpreting, and reporting continence and erectile dysfunction, the available results after LRP do not allow drawing any conclusion. Furthermore, the number of patients on whom results are reported is disproportionately low in relation to the large LRP experience accumulated so far. Short-term quality indicators. Assessment of LRP equanimity includes factors such as blood loss, transfusion rates, hospital stay, duration of catheterization, and complication profile. All the reports are concordant and demonstrate a benefit for the laparoscopic approach. However, no prospective and parallel studies compare the respective advantages of LRP and radical retropubic prostatectomy in reference centers.

In a review of the published literature results of LRP, there is not enough evidence to answer the question of whether the laparoscopic approach meets the quality standards. The available biochemical recurrence information is promising but limited to the short-term and the experience of two centers only. The question of omitting the PLND or performing a limited one in high-risk patients needs to be answered. The functional results analyses suffer from a lack of uniformity in methodology, a limited follow-up, and a disproportionately small number of patients in relation to the accumulated experience. Future reports of the post-learning phase era are dramatically needed.