Purpose: We performed a prospective analysis of pathological and oncological outcomes following laparoscopic radical prostatectomy at a medical center in the United States.
Materials and methods: A total of 528 men underwent laparoscopic radical prostatectomy between April 2001 and August 2005. We excluded 4 open surgical conversions (0.8%) and 16 men (3.0%) without followup. The remaining 508 men had a mean preoperative prostate specific antigen of 6.0 ng/ml (range 0.3 to 27) and Gleason score of 6.3 (range 6 to 10). Stage was cT1b in 1 case (0.2%), cT1c in 350 (68.9%), cT2a in 135 (26.6%), cT2b in 21 (4.1%) and cT2c in 1 (0.2%). Of the patients 89% underwent cavernous nerve preservation. Biochemical recurrence was defined and timed at the first prostate specific antigen of 0.2 ng/ml or greater if at repeat testing it remained 0.2 ng/ml or greater.
Results: Mean followup was 13.2 months (median 12, range 2 to 52). Pathological stage was pT0N0/Nx in 2 men (0.4%), pT2N0/Nx in 414 (81.5%), pT3aN0/Nx in 72 (14.2%), pT3bN0/Nx in 17 (3.3%) and pT2-3N1 in 3 (0.6%). Positive margin rates increased with higher stage (8.2% in pT2 and 39.3% in pT3 cases, p <0.0001). Three-year actuarial biochemical recurrence-free survival was 98.2% for pT2N0/Nx and 78.7% for pT3N0/Nx/N1 disease (p <0.0001), and it was 94.5% overall. Multivariate analysis controlling for age, preoperative prostate specific antigen, postoperative Gleason score and stage, and margin status showed that only Gleason score (greater than vs less than 7) and stage (pT3 or any N1 vs pT2) predicted biochemical progression.
Conclusions: Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy can provide excellent cancer control outcomes for clinically localized prostate cancer with high actuarial biochemical recurrence-free survival rates at 3 years.