A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Comparison of Outcomes of Robot-Assisted versus Open Partial Nephrectomy in Clinical T1 Renal Cell Carcinoma Patients

INTRODUCTION: Robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RAPN) has been increasingly used for renal cell carcinoma in recent years. But the advantages of RARN over open partial nephrectomy (OPN) are still controversial. METHODS: We searched the articles between 1997 and 2021 in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and EMbase databases. The parameters were perioperative outcomes including operating time (OT), warm ischemic time (WIT), estimated blood loss (EBL), positive surgical margin (PSM), preoperative and postoperative estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), length of stay (LOS), and intraoperative and postoperative complications. Stata 13.0 software was used for the meta-analysis. RESULTS: Seven studies with 2,646 patients (1,285 in RAPN vs. 1,361 in OPN) were included in the analysis. There were no significant differences in OT (WMD [95% confidence interval (CI)]: 0.14 [−0.33, 0.61], p = 0.570); WIT (WMD [95% CI]:0.28 [−0.13, 0.69], p = 0.187); PSM (odds ratio [OR] [95% CI]: 1.04 [0.37, 2.94], p = 0.944); preoperative eGFR (OR [95% CI]: 0.11 [−0.01, 0.23], p = 0.071); postoperative eGFR (OR [95% CI]: −0.11 [0.27, 0.04], p = 0.159); and intraoperative complications (OR [95% CI]: 0.13 [0.02, 1.04], p = 0.055) between 2 groups. But there were still less EBL (WMD [95% CI]: −0.67 [−1.07, −0.28], p = 0.001), shorter LOS (WMD [95% CI]: −1.09 [−1.86, −0.32], p = 0.005) and fewer postoperative complications (OR [95% CI]: 0.51 [0.38, 0.68], p = 0.000). CONCLUSIONS: Compared with OPN, RAPN appears to achieve partly similar short-term functional outcomes. Meanwhile, some results are inconsistent with previous studies which seem to show that tumor type is also an important factor in comparison between RAPN and OPN, but the analysis is not carried out due to lack of complete data. Therefore, more high-quality random controlled trials are acquired.