Comparing Patient-reported Functional Outcomes After Radical Prostatectomy in Historical and Contemporary Practice.

Modifications to surgical technique, particularly the widespread adoption of robotic surgery, have been proposed to improve functional recovery after prostate cancer surgery. However, rigorous comparison of men in historical vs contemporary practice to evaluate the cumulative effect of these changes on urinary and sexual function after radical prostatectomy is lacking. We compared prospectively collected patient-reported urinary and sexual function from historical (PROSTQA [Prostate Cancer Outcomes and Satisfaction With Treatment Quality Assessment study], n=235) and contemporary (MUSIC-PRO [Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative Patient Reported Outcome] registry, n=1,215) cohorts at the University of Michigan to understand whether modern techniques have resulted in functional improvements for men undergoing prostate cancer surgery. We found significant differences in baseline function, with better urinary (median [IQR]; 100 [93.8-100] vs 93.8 [85.5-100], Our results demonstrate that the widespread alterations in prostate cancer surgery over the past 2 decades have yielded improvements in sexual, but not urinary, function recovery.