From MedWire News – Oncology –
Prostate cancer control after radical prostatectomy improves with increasing surgeon experience, regardless of patients’ risk, say US scientists who suggest that the primary reason for recurrence in low-risk patients is inadequate surgical technique.
The team, led by Eric Klein from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, previously discovered that open radical prostatectomy has a learning curve, and other studies have indicated that patients treated by higher-volume surgeons have shorter hospital stays, fewer peri-operative complications, and better urinary continence than those treated by lower-volume surgeons.
This study was done for open radical prostatectomy patients.
My guess is that we will have similar results for robotic surgeons, but I think novice robotic surgeons that have vast experience with laparoscopic or open prostate cancer surgery will have better results than those who do not.