Comparison of 90-day re-admission rates between open retropubic radical prostatectomy (RRP), laparoscopic RP (LRP) and robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP)

Study Type--Therapy (case series) Level of Evidence 4. What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? With the increased use of laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) and robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP), a growing number of publications have sought to compare these more advanced techniques to retropubic RP (RRP). Many studies have found RALP and LRP to be associated with lower blood loss, postoperative pain, and hospital stay when compared with RRP. The present study showed that, after adjusting for potential confounders, patients undergoing RALP had a lower risk of 90-day re-admission than patients undergoing RRP. However, there was no significant difference in the odds of being re-admitted ≤ 90 days after RP between patients undergoing a LRP and RRP.

Objective: • To examine the risk of 90-day re-admission among patients undergoing retropubic radical prostatectomy (RRP), laparoscopic RP (LRP), and robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) in Taiwan.

Patients and methods: • We identified 2741 hospitalised patients who underwent a RP. Of these 2741 cases, 1773 patients underwent RRP, 694 LRP, and 274 RALP. • We performed a conditional (fixed-effect) logistic regression model to explore the odds of 90-day re-admission from RP among patients undergoing RRP, LRP, and RALP.

Results: • In all, 257 of the 2741 (9.4%) sampled subjects were re-admitted ≤ 90 days of the index RP. • Patients undergoing a RALP had a significantly lower incidence rate of 90-day re-admission than patients undergoing a RRP or LRP (3.6% vs 10.7% vs 8.2%, P < 0.001). • Compared with patients undergoing a RRP, the odds ratio (OR) of 90-day re-admission for patients undergoing a RALP was only 0.35 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.19-0.68) after adjusting for patient age, geographic region, year of surgery, Charlson Co-morbidity Index score, and surgeon age and the number of RP cases/year. • However, there was no significant difference in the odds of being re-admitted ≤ 90 days of RP between patients undergoing a LRP and RRP. • The adjusted odds of 90-day re-admission for patients undergoing a RALP were 0.46 (95% CI 0.23-0.94) those of patients undergoing a LRP.

Conclusions: • Our study shows that patients undergoing a RALP had a lower adjusted risk of 90-day re-admission than patients undergoing RRP. However, no significant differences were identified between LRP and RRP.