Beschreibung:
<jats:sec><jats:title>OBJECTIVE</jats:title><jats:p>To compare the functional results of two contemporary series of patients with clinically localized prostate cancer treated by robot‐assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) or retropubic radical prostatectomy (RRP).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>PATIENTS AND METHODS</jats:title><jats:p>This was a non‐randomized prospective comparative study of all patients undergoing RALP or RRP for clinically localized prostate cancer at our institution from February 2006 to April 2007.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>RESULTS</jats:title><jats:p>We enrolled 105 patients in the RRP and 103 in the RALP group; the two groups were comparable for all clinical and pathological variables, except median age. For RRP and RALP the respective median operative duration was 135 and 185 min (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001), the intraoperative blood loss 500 and 300 mL (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001) and postoperative transfusion rates 14% and 1.9% (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.01). There were complications in 9.7% and 10.4% of the patients (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.854) after RRP and RALP, respectively; the positive surgical margin rates in pT2 cancers were 12.2% and 11.7% (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.70). For urinary continence, 41% of patients having RRP and 68.9% of those having RALP were continent at catheter removal (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001). The 12‐month continence rates were 88% after RRP and 97% after RALP (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> = 0.01), with the mean time to continence being 75 and 25 days (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001), respectively. At the 12‐month follow‐up, 20 of 41 patients having bilateral nerve‐sparing RRP (49%) and 52 of 64 having bilateral nerve‐sparing RALP (81%) (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001) had recovery of erectile function.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>CONCLUSIONS</jats:title><jats:p>RALP offers better results than RRP in terms of urinary continence and erectile function recovery, with similar positive surgical margin rates.</jats:p></jats:sec>