Impact of surgical technique (open vs laparoscopic vs robotic-assisted) on pathological and biochemical outcomes following radical prostatectomy: an analysis using propensity score matching.

OBJECTIVE: • To investigate a single institution experience with radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP), laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) and robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) with respect to pathological and biochemical outcomes. PATIENTS AND METHODS: • A group of 522 consecutive patients who underwent RARP between 2003 and 2008 were matched by propensity scoring on the basis of patient age, race, preoperative prostate-specific antigen (PSA), biopsy Gleason score and clinical stage with an equal number of patients who underwent LRP and RRP at our institution. • Pathological and biochemical outcomes of the three cohorts were examined.
RESULTS: • Overall positive surgical margin rates were lower among patients who underwent RRP (14.4%) and LRP (13.0%) compared to patients who underwent RARP (19.5%) (P= 0.010). There were no statistically significant differences in positive margin rates between the three surgical techniques for pT2 disease (P= 0.264). • In multivariate logistic regression analysis, surgical technique (P= 0.016), biopsy Gleason score (P < 0.001) and preoperative PSA (P < 0.001) were predictors of positive surgical margins. • Kaplan-Meier analysis did not show any statistically significant differences with respect to biochemical recurrence for the three surgical groups.
CONCLUSIONS: • RRP, LRP and RARP represent effective surgical approaches for the treatment for clinically localized prostate cancer. A higher overall positive SM rate was observed for the RARP group compared to RRP and LRP; however, there was no difference with respect to biochemical recurrence-free survival between groups. • Further prospective studies are warranted to determine whether any particular technique is superior with regard to long-term clinical outcomes.