Evidence on Robotic Prostatectomy: Discussing the Limitations of Real-World Data

Maciej Dzik, Kacper Mucha, Monika Zaleska

2025

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this research is to evaluate Real-World Data (RWD) related to prostatectomy outcomes for prostate cancer with a focus on identifying potential biases and data limitations. METHODS: This study was based on the financial records collected in the database the Polish National Health Fund. The sample included 14,376 patients who underwent robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP), laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) or conventional radical prostatectomy (CRP) between 20 September 2022 and 31 December 2023. Comparative analysis focused exclusively on the duration of hospitalisation. Additional outcomes included mortality. RESULTS: In total 6,609 patients had RARP. RARP compared to both CRP and LRP was associated with a reduction in inpatient days by 2.81 (95% CI: -2.98, -2.65; p<0.0001) and 0.91 (95% CI: -1.02, -0.8; p<0.0001) respectively. Patient admitted as emergencies had statistically longer hospital stays by 1.03 days (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The overall length of hospitalization has been reduced, but interpreting the results obtained from RWD in terms of relative benefits is challenging. The analysis faced several challenges, including interpreting outcome measures and validating their clinical significance, handling outliers, addressing non-random assignment, and accounting for unobserved covariates. These limitations underscore the need for further research to enhance the quality of comparisons.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Dzik M., Mucha K. and Zaleska M. (2025). Evidence on Robotic Prostatectomy: Discussing the Limitations of Real-World Data. In Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 2: HEALTHINF; ISBN 978-989-758-731-3, SciTePress, pages 694-697. DOI: 10.5220/0013248100003911

in Bibtex Style

@conference{healthinf25,
author={Maciej Dzik and Kacper Mucha and Monika Zaleska},
title={Evidence on Robotic Prostatectomy: Discussing the Limitations of Real-World Data},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 2: HEALTHINF},
year={2025},
pages={694-697},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013248100003911},
isbn={978-989-758-731-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 2: HEALTHINF
TI - Evidence on Robotic Prostatectomy: Discussing the Limitations of Real-World Data
SN - 978-989-758-731-3
AU - Dzik M.
AU - Mucha K.
AU - Zaleska M.
PY - 2025
SP - 694
EP - 697
DO - 10.5220/0013248100003911
PB - SciTePress