Evidence Hub

Robotic prostatectomy - a review

El-Hakim A, Tewari A

MedGenMed : Medscape general medicine, 2004

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To review the current medical literature on robotic prostatectomy (RP) and report clinical outcomes of this newly developed technique.

DATA SOURCE: A MEDLINE search was performed using the following headings: prostate cancer, radical prostatectomy, robotics, robot assisted, laparoscopy, telesurgery. In addition, recently published abstracts on RP were reviewed.

STUDY SELECTION: Studies that reported clinical and pathological variables of patients undergoing RP were included in this meta-analysis.

DATA EXTRACTION: Data were extracted from published articles and abstracts.

DATA SYNTHESIS: Robotic systems enhance surgeons' technical abilities and offer the potential of precise surgical technique. Short-term follow-up studies demonstrate that RP is at least comparable in efficacy to open and laparoscopic prostatectomy, including clinical and pathologic parameters. RP has benefits of minimal invasiveness, decreased blood loss, and quicker recovery compared with open surgery. Functional and cancer control results are still immature, but most studies reported favorable outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS: RP is a promising minimally invasive surgical approach for men with prostate cancer. Short-term clinical and pathological results are comparable to those with open and laparoscopic prostatectomy.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a meta-analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free