Studies have shown that approximately 16% of patients with localised prostate cancer regret their treatment choice. European Urology, the official journal of the European Association of Urology, will be publishing an article by J.W. Moul et al. comparing differences in satisfaction and regret between patients who underwent open retropubic radical prostatectomy and robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.
The study, carried out at the Duke University Medical Center, Durham (US), aimed to identify independent predictors for satisfaction and regret after radical prostatectomy so that patients can be counselled more adequately. A total of 400 patients responded, the majority of whom were satisfied. The article title is ‘Satisfaction and regret after open retropubic or robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy’.
This is the first study addressing the impact of a surgical approach to prostatectomy on satisfaction and regret. Sociodemographic variables and disease-specific, health-related quality of life were important variables associated with satisfaction and regret. The authors found that undergoing robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALP) is independently associated with more frequent dissatisfaction and regret, about 3-4 times more than patients undergoing retropubic radical prostatectomy (RRP).