Indiana Pouch Continent Cutaneous Urinary Diversion After Robotic-assisted Radical Cystectomy: A 16-Year Experience

Population-based practice patterns in the United States reveal continent diversions are only performed in 8%-10.4% of patients.^1-4 Ideally, for patients undergoing radical cystectomy the choice of urinary diversion should be influenced by clinical factors and patient preference, with discussions surrounding quality of life. Unfortunately, receipt of continent diversion has been shown to be influenced by a plethora of other factors such as surgeon preference/training, geography, socioeconomic status, gender, and hospital volume.^1-3 Thus, by providing detailed instruction and long-term follow-up, we hope to mitigate some of these disparities by changing the perceptions regarding feasibility and complications of continent diversions.

To provide step-by-step instruction and to report long-term clinical outcomes in bladder cancer patients receiving an Indiana pouch continent cutaneous urinary diversion (CCUD) after robot-assisted radical cystectomy.

After Institutional Review Board approval, a prospectively maintained bladder cancer database was queried for patients with T1-T4, N0-N1, M0 bladder cancer undergoing radical cystectomy with CCUD at a tertiary referral center from 2004 to 2020.

Complications at 30- and 90-day were recorded according to the Clavien-Dindo classification. Continence rates were recorded by chart review.

A total of 97 patients were included with a median follow-up of 93months. Clinically, 91.8% had ≤T2 disease and 29.9% received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The median length of surgery was 8.0 hours, length of hospital stay was 8.3days, and urinary continence rate was 99.0%. The overall complication rate was 73.2% and 76.5% at 30- and 90-day, respectively. The major complication rate (Clavien III-V) was 17.5% at 30-day and 22.7% at 90-day. The most common major complications were abdominal infection and uretero-colonic stricture. The readmission rate was 21.4% and median overall survival was 108months.

CCUD provides exceptional functional outcomes with acceptable complication rates compared to other diversion types. CCUD is a reliable reconstructive option and with this step-by-step video as a reference, we hope it will be offered to more patients.