Although there is a growing number of prostates being removed robotically, there are many people and top urologists questioning the benefit of the da Vinci prostatectomy over the established open approach. This was recently debated on ABC News.
I do find it interesting in that how some urologists that I deeply respect are heavily in favor of it, including one of my mentors at Indiana University, Dr. Koch.
One person who I have failed to meet as of yet, is a urologist who has performed a lot of these procedures, and then decided that the robot was not necessary and reverted back to the regular laparoscopic or open approach.
Many of the top open prostate surgeons are now performing robotic prostatectomies.