prostate-report.org

Minimally Invasive Prostate Surgery Is Riskier

According to a study at Division of Urologic Surgery and the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, minimally invasive radical prostatectomy (MIRP) for prostate cancer (CaP) is the most common treatment modality for localized CaP in the United States. The popularity in part is due to marketing and patient driven desire for the procedure. This encompasses both pure laparoscopic radical prostatectomy and robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy.

In the October 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study leader and colleagues compare outcomes of MIRP and RP using the SEER database.

Use of minimally invasive radical prostatectomy (MIRP), and robot-assisted in particular, has risen steeply: from 1 per cent of all radical prostatectomies in 2001 to 40 per cent in 2006, wrote the authors, adding that the rapid rise has taken place despite there being limited data on outcomes and the costs being greater compared with open retropubic radical prostatectomy or RRP.