[Radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, perioperative management by French urologists in 2018]

Prostatectomy (PT) is a common procedure performed by many urologists. In 2018, 20,207 prostatectomies were performed in France, and few studies evaluated the perioperative habits of urologists. As part of writing guidelines for enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) we wished to evaluate practice of urologists in their hospital management of a prostatectomy.

A questionnaire was sent by Survey Monkey in June and July 2018 to all urologists who are members of the French Association of Urology.

One hundred and sixty seven urologists (14%) answered the questionnaire, 62% have private practice. The average number of operators per center performing PT was 4, with a median number of 70 interventions (0 to 486) per center in 2018. Open surgery is still gold standard (39.13%), followed by the robot-assisted transperitoneal laparoscopic (34.78%) and standard laparoscopic (24.22%). Alimentation, like first stand-up, was re-established on the first post-operative day, and the average hospital stay was 4±2 nights. The removal of the bladder catheter was most often performed at home by nurse (49.06%), one week after surgery. Only 10.06% of urologists systematically perform a cystography before removal urinary catheter.

The perioperative management of prostatectomy in France is relatively homogeneous, between urologists. The length of hospital stay remains important and could be reduced by proposing an ERAS protocol as has been obtained for cystectomy.

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