Robotic partial cystectomy for bladder cancer: a single-institutional pilot study

Open partial cystectomy has been used as a curative option for select group of patients with bladder cancer. In recent years, the da Vinci Surgical Robotic System is being increasingly used to perform complex urologic cancer surgeries. We report first on a consecutive cohort of patients undergoing robotic partial cystectomy (RPC) for bladder cancer.

Three consecutive patients underwent RPC, two with diagnosis of papillary neoplasm of bladder and one with urachal adenocarcinoma at our institution from July 2008 to January 2009. Perioperative parameters were prospectively collected and analyzed after Institutional Review Board approval.

All three patients in the study were men with a median age of 50 years (range, 24-70 years). The RPC was completed transperitoneally in all three patients without the need for open conversion. The operative time, estimated blood loss, and time to hospital discharge for the three patients undergoing RPC were 185, 135, and 165 minutes; 25, 20, and 20 mL; and 5, 2, and 2 days, respectively. The percentage change in hematocrit after surgery was within 5% in all patients. There were no postoperative complications before discharge; however, one patient was readmitted and underwent small bowel resection secondary to bowel obstruction. Final pathology demonstrated high-grade carcinoma pT2bNxMx and pTaNxMx papillary urothelial carcinoma in two patients and invasive adenocarcinoma of the bladder pT3aNxMx in the remaining patient. The median follow-up was 6 months (range, 3-10 months). All three patients were alive with no signs of recurrent or metastatic disease on cystoscopic, cytological, or radiological follow-up.

RPC is technically feasible using the da Vinci Surgical Robotic System in select patients with bladder cancer without disease recurrence in the short term. A larger cohort with long-term follow-up is necessary to validate our results.