Long-Term Oncologic Outcome of an Initial Series of Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy for Clinically Localized Prostate Cancer After a Median Follow-up of 10 Years

The long-term oncologic outcomes for laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP), a minimal invasive approach for the treatment of localized prostate cancer, are still only sparsely available. We, therefore, evaluated the outcomes after 10 years of an initial series of 100 patients who had undergone LRP. The estimated 10-year biochemical recurrence-free survival was 78.6%, indicating excellent long-term oncologic control for patients with localized prostate cancer. Introduction: When laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) was introduced as a novel treatment option for prostate cancer, it had to compete with the established open techniques. The short-and intermediate-term oncologic and functional outcomes were encouraging and comparable to those with retropubic radical prostatectomy. However, the long-term oncologic safety for LRP has yet to be fully elucidated. We evaluated the long-term oncologic outcomes of an initial series of patients who had undergone LRP. Patients and Methods: An initial unselected and consecutive series of 100 patients who had undergone LRP for clinically localized prostate cancer from 1999 to 2001 was identified. The pre-, intra-, and postoperative data were collected. Biochemical recurrence (BCR) was defined as a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) value of >= 0.2 ng/mL. The outcome measures were cancer control (CC), BCR-free survival (BCRFS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), and overall survival (OS). Results: The mean patient age was 64 +/- 7 years, and the mean preoperative PSA level was 9.6 +/- 8.3 ng/mL. Of the 100 patients, 79 (79%) had stage pT2 and 15 (15%) had stage pT3 disease. Positive surgical margins were found in 25 patients (25%; 16.4% for pT2 and 40% for pT3). The median follow-up time was 126 months (range, 60-176 months). The 5-year CC rate was 82%. The estimated 10-year BCRFS was 83% and 80% for patients with stage pT2 and pT3 tumors, respectively. The median time to BCR was 52 months (range, 6-144 months). The estimated 10-year CSS and OS was 98% and 93%, respectively. Conclusion: Our long-term follow-up data from an initial unselected patient cohort have indicated that LRP offers excellent long-term oncologic control for patients with localized prostate cancer. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.