The Gold Standard treatment for a non-metastatic, invasive bladder cancer is an open radical cystoprostatectomy (ORCP). Laparoscopic radical cystoprostatectomy (LRCP) is still an experimental technique in evaluation. We describe our perioperative results defined as surgical and safety oncology variables.
Every patient who underwent a LRCP between January 2007 and July 2011 in the urology department of the University Public Hospital was evaluated. We perform a descriptive retrospective analysis.
We evaluated 84 patients, 72 males and 12 females, with a mean age of 68 (44-79). A Bricker diversion was performed in 80 patients, a Camey II bladder replacement was performed in 3 patients, and a Studer bladder replacement was performed in 1 patient. Seventeen patients (20.23%) presented with previous abdominal surgery, and 6 patients (7.14%) presented a medical history of urological surgery. The mean surgery time was 257.57 minutes (180-420). The mean hospital stay was 11.875 days (standard deviation (SD): 6.28). The onset of tolerance to surgery occurred after 3.7 days (SD: 2.21).The transfusion rate after surgical intervention was 20.2%. The mean number of nodes removed, by means of ilio-obturator lymphadenectomy, was 17 (13-19). There were no intraoperative complications. Early complications (less than 1 month after the intervention) occurred in 28 patients (33.3% ).There were no post-operative deaths. There were late complications (starting one month after the intervention) in 7 patients (8.3% ).
Our study demonstrated that LRCP is safe and reproducible and represents a minimally invasive option for patients with infiltrative bladder cancer.