Laparoscopic versus open radical cystectomy in 607 patients with bladder cancer: Comparative survival analysis

To compare perioperative and oncologic survival outcomes between laparoscopic radical cystectomy and open radical cystectomy.

A total of 607 patients underwent open radical cystectomy (n = 412) or laparoscopic radical cystectomy (n = 195) at a single academic institution from January 2006 to April 2017. Their medical records were retrospectively analyzed. One-to-one propensity score matching was carried out to reduce selection bias. Estimated blood loss and complications were compared. Overall survival, cancer-specific survival and progression-free survival estimates for all patients and patients with locally advanced bladder cancer were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Either before or after matching, the laparoscopic radical cystectomy group had less estimated blood loss (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001) and fewer complications (P < 0.001 and P = 0.008). There was no difference in the overall survival (P = 0.216 and P = 0.961) and progression-free survival (P = 0.826 and P = 0.462) for all the patients having either laparoscopic radical cystectomy or open radical cystectomy. However, the 5-year progression-free survival of open radical cystectomy was higher than that of laparoscopic radical cystectomy (P = 0.019 and P = 0.021) for patients with locally advanced bladder cancer.

Laparoscopic radical cystectomy is superior to open radical cystectomy in terms of perioperative outcomes, and similar to open radical cystectomy in terms of oncologic outcomes for patients with early stage bladder cancer. However, for patients with locally advanced bladder cancer, laparoscopic radical cystectomy seems to be associated with shorter progression-free survival than open radical cystectomy.