A Narrative Review of da Vinci Single-Port Versus Multi-Port Robotic Surgery in Elderly or Frail Urological Cancer...

Elderly and frail patients undergoing surgery for urological cancer have increased vulnerability to postoperative complications, delayed recovery, and functional decline. The da Vinci Single-Port (SP) platform may reduce surgical stress by enabling regionalized extraperitoneal, retroperitoneal, or transvesical access through a single incision.

The objective was to provide a narrative review of the comparative evidence on da Vinci SP versus conventional multi-port (MP) robotic surgery in elderly or frail urological cancer patients.

A structured search was performed to identify comparative studies reporting outcomes in patients defined as elderly by chronological age (≥65 years) or as frail by a validated frailty index. Findings are reported separately according to the vulnerability construct that was actually measured. Because of procedural and methodological heterogeneity, a narrative synthesis was performed, and the risk of bias was appraised qualitatively along the domains of the ROBINS-I tool.

Only three retrospective comparative studies are currently available: two on robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (one in patients aged ≥65 years and one in patients stratified by the 5-item modified frailty index) and one on robot-assisted partial nephrectomy in patients aged ≥65 years. Across these studies, SP surgery was associated with fewer early postoperative complications, shorter length of stay, and more favourable recovery-related endpoints, and in the frailty-stratified study the apparent protective effect increased with frailty burden. All estimates are those published by the original authors, are reported descriptively, and were not pooled. Importantly, in none of the three studies was the SP platform compared with MP surgery performed through the same access route: SP procedures were predominantly extraperitoneal or retroperitoneal and MP procedures were predominantly transperitoneal, so the effect of the platform cannot be separated from that of the access route.

The available data are compatible with a reduction in early perioperative morbidity after SP robotic surgery in selected elderly or frail urological cancer patients, particularly when the platform enables extraperitoneal or retroperitoneal access. Because this evidence rests on three retrospective studies at serious risk of bias, the findings are preliminary and hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory. Prospective studies incorporating geriatric screening, validated frailty metrics, patient-reported recovery, cost-effectiveness, and long-term oncological outcomes are needed.