Robotic surgery shown to improve patient outcomes
Prostate cancer patients who undergo robotic-assisted surgery have fewer instances of cancer cells at the edge of their surgical specimen and less need for additional cancer treatments, researchers claim.
The observational study, from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and published in European Urology, was led by Dr. Jim Hu, UCLA’s Henry E. Singleton Professor of Urology and director of robotic and minimally invasive surgery in the urology department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy - the complete removal of the prostate using a robotic apparatus - is said to be contentious as there is little evidence showing it provides better cancer control than open radical prostatectomy, the traditional, less costly surgical approach.
In an effort to determine whether or not robotic surgery offered an advantage, Hu and his colleagues compared 5,556 patients who received robotic surgery with 7,878 who underwent open surgery between 2004 and 2009.
Data was provided by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results–Medicare, a program of cancer registries that collect clinical and demographic information on people with cancer.
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