Jordan Angell

Robotic Management of Benign Mid and Distal Ureteral Strictures and Comparison With Laparoscopic Approaches at a Single Institution

OBJECTIVE To present our experience and outcomes with robotic mid and distal ureteral reconstruction and to compare these results with our previous laparoscopic series. METHODS In an institutional review board-approved retrospective study, 16 patients underwent robotic mid and distal ureteral repair (13 ureteral reimplantations and 3 ureteroureterostomies) at our institution from August 2008 to September 2011. Proximal ureteral stricture, extrinsic obstruction, and ureteropelvic junction obstruction cases were excluded. The demographic, perioperative, and postoperative data were reviewed in the reimplantation and ureteroureterostomy robotic groups. These data were compared with the outcomes from our previously published series on laparoscopic ureteral reimplantation. RESULTS The data from 16 robotic procedures were included in the present study, including 2 open conversions because of excessive scar tissue. A symptomatic bowel injury (Clavien grade IIIb) occurred in 1 case. In our previous series, 5 of the 6 laparoscopic procedures were performed completely laparoscopically with 1 open conversion for anastomosis completion. No major complications occurred. The mean robotic surgery time was 258.6 minutes (range 146-450) compared with 276.5 minutes (range 180-360) for the laparoscopic group. The mean robotic hospital stay was 2.5 days (range 1-8) compared with 2.7 days (range 2-5) for the laparoscopic group. The mean robotic estimated blood loss was 171 mL (range 30-500) compared with 150 mL (range 50-250) for the laparoscopic group. All cases were clinically and radiographically successful at the last follow-up examination. CONCLUSION Although early in our experience, the robotic repair of mid and distal ureteral strictures appears to be an efficacious approach comparable to laparoscopy for such conditions.

Health Related Quality of Life for Stone Formers

PURPOSE Urolithiasis is a common urological condition that causes significant pain and suffering. Until recently few studies had been done to examine how quality of life is affected in stone formers. We hypothesized that patients with multiple recurrent episodes of urolithiasis have worse health related quality of life. Thus, we identified specific factors that impact health related quality of life in patients with urolithiasis. MATERIALS AND METHODS In an institutional review board approved study we recruited 386 patients through mailings and through the outpatient clinic who were evaluated at our institution for urolithiasis in the last 5 years. Each patient was asked to answer questionnaires on stone disease, including SF-36®, a validated 36-item health care quality of life survey. RESULTS Of the 386 patients recruited for study 115 responded to our inquiry. Variables such as surgical complications, time from last stone episode, number of emergency room visits and number of surgeries correlated with the SF-36 domains. CONCLUSIONS Urolithiasis is associated with severe physical and psychological effects that lead to clinically significant impairment in quality of life. Our findings confirm and expand the findings of previous groups showing the many ways in which stone formation can affect patient quality of life. Appreciation of these effects in the acute and chronic treatment settings may change the way that the disease is approached.

Contribution of Laparoscopic Training to Robotic Proficiency

PURPOSE Robotic surgical technology has been adopted by surgeons with and without previous standard laparoscopic experience. The necessity or benefit of prior training and experience in laparoscopic surgery is unknown. We hypothesized that laparoscopic training enhances performance in robotic surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fourteen medical students with no surgical experience were instructed to incise a spiral using the da Vinci(®) surgical robot with time to completion and errors recorded. Each student was then trained for 1 month in standard laparoscopy, but with no further robotic exposure. Training included a validated laparoscopic training program, including timed and scored parameters. After completion of the month-long training, the students repeated the cutting exercise using the da Vinci robot as well as with standard laparoscopic instruments and were scored within the same parameters. RESULTS The mean time to completely incise the spiral robotically before training was 16.72 min with a mean of 6.21 errors. After 1 month of validated laparoscopic training, the mean robotic time fell to 9:03 min (p=0.0002) with 3.57 errors (p=0.02). Laparoscopic performance after 1 month of validated laparoscopic training was 13.95 min with 6.14 errors, which was no better than pretraining robotic performance (p=0.20) and worse than post-training robotic performance (p=0.01). CONCLUSIONS Formal laparoscopic training improved the performance of a complex robotic task. The initial robotic performance without any robotic or laparoscopic training was equivalent to standard laparoscopic performance after extensive training. Additionally, after laparoscopic training, the robot allowed significantly superior speed and precision of the task. Laparoscopic training may improve the proficiency in operation of the robot. This may explain the perceived ease with which robotics is adopted by laparoscopically trained surgeons and may be important in training future robotic surgeons.

Percutaneous Antegrade Resection of Renal Pelvic Tumors Using Bipolar Plasma Kinetic Button Vaporization: A Novel Technique

Abstract Introduction: Transurethral bipolar button vaporization is beginning to emerge as a potentially safer and equally efficacious method to treat benign prostatic enlargement as well as bladde...