Prospective quality of life in men choosing open vs. robotic radical prostatectomy: long-term results from a racially diverse multi-institutional database

Purpose To compare 5-year health-related quality of life (HRQoL) outcomes between prostate cancer (CaP) patients who underwent robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALP) versus open radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP) and assess for racial disparities between Caucasian American (CA) and African American (AA) men undergoing surgery. Methods A prospective cohort study of HRQoL data was conducted on patients diagnosed with CaP from 2007 to 2017 and enrolled in the Center for Prostate Disease Research (CPDR) Multicenter National Database. Using the EPIC and SF-36 instruments, changes in urinary, sexual, bowel, and hormonal domains, as well as physical and mental component summary scores were compared across surgery type (RALP versus RRP) at pre-treatment (“baseline”), and annually for 5 years. We further compared HRQoL outcomes in CA and AA men undergoing surgery. Longitudinal HRQoL patterns were modeled using generalized estimating equations (GEE), adjusting for baseline HRQoL and other characteristics. Results 448 CaP patients (22% AA) met study inclusion criteria, 66% underwent RALP and 34% underwent RRP. At baseline, HRQoL domains were comparable across treatment group (RALP vs. RRP). In the adjusted low-risk cohort, there were only three time points that met a statistically significant HRQoL difference in EPIC scores between RALP and RRP. Urinary function score during year 4 of follow-up showed a 7.5 (95% CI 3.1–11.9, P = 0.01) points difference in favor of RRP. Bowel bother scores favored RRP in year 1 with a difference of 3.1 (95% CI 0.7–5.4, P = 0.04) points, and in year 5 with a difference of 3.8 (95% CI 1.1–6.4, P = 0.03) points. In the intermediate/high-risk cohort, there were no statistically significant differences in any of the domain scores between RALP and RRP during follow-up. Conclusions The robotic and open approach to radical prostatectomy led to comparable HRQoL outcomes at a follow-up length of 60 months. No HRQoL racial disparities were found between AA and CA men during long-term follow-up.