Study: Robotic Bladder Cancer Surgery Safe

Robotic-assisted surgery for invasive bladder cancer caused less bleeding and allowed patients to return home sooner with no difference in oncologic outcomes compared with conventional surgery, investigators reported in a small pilot study.

Initial results from an ongoing randomized trial showed no significant difference in the rate of positive surgical margins or number of lymph nodes evaluated with robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery versus open radical cystectomy, Dipen Parekh, MD, of the University of Miami, and colleagues wrote in the Journal of Urology online.

Robotic surgery was associated with 50% less blood loss, more than a threefold increase in the proportion of patients who left the hospital within 5 days, and a 20% reduction in the rate of transfusion in the first 47 randomized patients, they added.

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