Prostate cancer surgery: hospital stays for open vs robotic surgery

Length of Hospital Stay Similar for Robotic Assisted and Conventional Prostatectomy

beige_quote.bmpThe current study prospectively compared length of hospital stay in 374 patients who underwent conventional RP and 629 who underwent LRP between 2002 and 2005. These authors reported that 94.3% of patients undergoing RP and 97.5% undergoing LRP were discharged on or before postoperative day 1. The mean stay for patients receiving RP was 1.25 days compared to 1.17 days for those receiving LRP. Readmission rates were 7% for the RP group and 5% for the LRP group. None of these differences were statistically significant. Unscheduled visits to the emergency room occurred in 10% of both groups. The major cause of hospital visits was ileus. These authors concluded that both groups of patients could be treated on the same clinical pathway as they had similar problems.


This is one study that shows similar hospital stays among open and robotic prostatectomy. In my experience this hasn’t been the case. The reason the hospital stays were similar is that they were able to shorten the hospital stays to 1 night in most patients.
I remember following this. Vanderbilt is excellent at creating clinical pathways and they have significantly cut their open hospital stays after the robotic stay started out shorter. I think Vanderbilt’s open stays are now among the best in the country.