Robotic-assisted, laparoscopic, and open radical cystectomy: surgical data of 1400 patients from The Italian Radical Cystectomy Registry on intraoperative outcomes

INTRODUCTION: The Italian Radical Cystectomy Registry (Registro Italiano Cistectomie – RIC) aimed to analyse outcomes of a multicenter series of patients treated with radical cystectomy (RC) for bladder cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS: An observational, prospective, multicenter, cohort study was performed to collect data from RC and urinary diversion via open (ORC), laparoscopic (LRC), or robotic-assisted (RARC) techniques performed in 28 Italian Urological Departments. The enrolment was planned from January 2017 to June 2020 (goal: 1000 patients), with a total of 1425 patients included. Chi-square and t-tests were used for categorical and continuous variables. All tests were 2-sided, with a significance level set at p <0.05. RESULTS: Overall median operative-time was longer in RARCs (390 minutes, IQR 335–465) than ORCs (250, 217–309) and LRCs (292, 228–350) (p <0.001). Lymph node dissection (LND) was performed more frequently in RARCs (97.1%) and LRCs (93.5%) than ORCs (85.6%) (p <0.001), with extended-LND performed 2-fold more frequently in RARCs (61.6%) (p <0.001). The neobladder rate was significantly higher (more than one-half) in RARCs. The median estimated blood loss (EBL) rate was lower in RARCs (250 ml, 165–400) than LRCs (330, 200–600) and ORCs (400, 250–600) (p <0.001), with intraoperative blood transfusion rates of 11.4%, 21.7% and 35.6%, respectively (p <0.001). The conversion to open rate was slightly higher in RARCs (6.8%) than LRCs (4.3%). Intraoperative complications occurred in 1.3% of cases without statistically significant differences among the approaches. CONCLUSIONS: Data from the RIC confirmed the need to collect as much data as possible in a multicenter manner. RARCs proves to be feasible with perioperative complication rates that do not differ from the other approaches.