Robotic Surgery May Improve Survival Rate For Prostate Cancer Patients

Performing less invasive laparoscopic surgery using robotic technology may improve survival rates for prostate cancer patients, according to a study by urologic oncologists at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital’s multidisciplinary Genitourinary (GU) cancer center.

In a study presented May 21, 2007 at the annual American Urological Society meeting in Anaheim, Calif., the Jefferson urologists found that performing a laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) with robot technology can reduce positive surgical margins. Positive surgical margins refers to when cancer, seen under a microscope, goes to the edge of a specimen, meaning that cancerous cells likely remain in the patient. LRP is the surgical removal of the entire prostate gland and surrounding tissue including the seminal vessels through several tiny incisions. “We demonstrated a significant improvement (lowering) in the positive surgical margin rate with the addition of robotics to an established LRP,“ said Costas Lallas, M.D., assistant professor of Urology, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, one of the investigators.

Laparoscopic surgery has proven to offer potential advantages to patients including less trauma through smaller incisions, faster recovery and less overall blood loss during surgery, allowing most patients to leave the hospital in one day. The robotic system further refines laparoscopic prostatectomy by allowing a surgeon’s hand movements to be scaled, filtered and translated into precise movements of micro-instruments within the operative field. The magnified, three-dimensional view the surgeon experiences enables him to perform precise surgery in complex procedures, such as radical prostatectomy, through small surgical incisions.

MBUA have been performing robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy since 2003, and are the only urologists in the Monterey Bay area who perform robotic prostatectomy using the da Vinci Surgical System. Our experience is the same as reported in this study and others; patients recover much faster after robotic prostatectomy than after open surgery, and the cancer cure rate, and recovery of normal urinary and sexual function are superior compared to open prostate cancer surgery.