The perioperative values of RARC and LRC have been fully proved—less blood loss, rapid intestinal recovery, low analgesic needs and short hospital stay[16–19]. In theory, robotic devices could reduce muscle tremors caused by fatigue in the operators' arm, while weakening haptic feedback. However, two simultaneous mete-analysis comparing the perioperative and tumor outcomes of the two minimally invasive surgical approaches reached divergent conclusions[9, 10]. Feng et al[9] considered that RARC was superior to LRC in complications, length of stay, lymph node yield and mortality. Peng and colleagues found no significant difference on the efectiveness and safety between RARC and LRC. We hypothesized that heterogeneity of the included literature and neoplasm staging led to the above discrepancy. In our study, there was good comparability between the two groups in age, gender, ASA score, coexisting disease, tumor stage and histological type. Hydronephrosis is one of the secondary prognostic factors in BC patients and affects the choice of treatment options[20]. Only one of the 4 PSM patients had hydronephrosis before operation, so hydronephrosis was not a significant factor for PSM in this study(P = 0.475). Perioperative complications and postoperative survival outcomes were associated with tumor progress even with the use of minimally invasive surgical tools[11–13]. The PSM rate and 30-d mortality of pT4 patients increased to 31.5% and 4.2%[12]. Previous studies suggested that there was no significant difference in PSM between the RARC and LRC groups[16, 21, 22]. Here, RARC had a potentially lower PSM rate(0 vs 5.3%,P = 0.051) in patients with non-advanced diseases, which might owe to the flexible mechanical arms and stereoscopic vision. Although the median lymph node yield in the RARC group was higher (11 vs 10,P = 0.062), but this failed to achieve statistical difference and significant clinical significance. And the lymph node yield depended on the extent of pelvic lymph node dissection.
The surgery time of RARC and LRC fluctuated in 328–511 and 301–533 minutes respectively[10]. There are many factors affecting intraoperative time[23]. Although the time-consuming of RARC tends to be shortened[23], it doesn’t omit the necessary surgical steps but requires more time in assembling, debugging and disassembling instruments compared with LRC. RARC required obviously longer median operative time than LRC in non-advanced group (370 vs 305 min,P < 0.001), while it did not significantly increase the risk of anaesthetic resuscitation(11.1 vs 9.3%,P = 0.715). Some scholars pointed out that intraoperative blood transfusion was associated with survival parameters and robots were expected to reduce the demand for blood products[24]. In non-advanced patients, the intraoperative blood transfusion rate was similar in the RARC and LRC groups(20 vs 18.5%,P = 0.815), which is line with Su’s retrospective study of 315 patients[21]. And there was no statistically significant difference in hemoglobin decline and transfusion cost (P = 0.489,0.898), suggesting similar intraoperative blood loss.
Khan et al[22] showed no significant difference in 30-d major complication(Clavien 3–5) among open surgery and minimally invasive surgical approaches(P = 0.20). Peng and colleagues[10] further demonstrated that the postoperative complication rates were similar between RARC and LRC(P = 0.61). However, other voices insisted that LRC was associated with a higher complication rates(p = 0.02)[9]. There existed a higher morbidity in LRC group(50% vs 36.5%,P = 0.017)[21]. Vetterlein and colleagues[15] reported that 99% of patients with RC would experience some complications, with a fatality rate of 2.4% within 30 days after surgery. However, the concept of postoperative meaningful complications has not been clearly defined, resulting in a wide variation in the reported rate of complications in different institutions. We found no statistically significant difference in the rate and severity of 30-d complications between RARC and LRC in patients stratified for tumor stage. Likewise, postoperative hospital stay was similar. Inconsistent with the above studies, lymphorrhagia was a common issue in minimal Invasive RC in our retrospective study(supplement Table 1). Compared with open surgery, RARC has advantages in the less blood loss, mild complication and short hospital stay, which cannot completely counteract the high cost of equipment[25]. Patients with RARC spend much more than those with LRC[21]. There is no study about cost analysis between RARC and LRC. The costs of surgery and consumables were the reason for the expensive hospitalization fees of RARC.
Therefore, we has compared the effectiveness and cost of RARC and LRC. Compared with previous studies, LRC and RARC had better comparability in terms of intraoperative transfusion rates, complications, postoperative hospital stay and treatment costs. Meantime, RARC showed better pathological outcomes, which need to be further validated with long-term survival data.
Inevitably, there were several limitations in this study. First, Our study was a single-center retrospective study with its inherent drawbacks, but we provided much detailed perioperative data. Second, different surgical habits and treatment ideas among the five surgeons may lead to some bias. Third, instead of collecting estimated blood lose, we assessed the intraoperative blood transfusion, perioperative hemoglobin level and blood fees, which we believe can reflect intraoperative condition objectively. Nevertheless, this study enriches the perioperative data of LRC and RARC and opens a new perspective for patients to choose surgical tools.