Nerve-sparing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy: Current perspectives

Robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) is the current standard of care with long term cure in organ-confined disease. The introduction of nerve-sparing (NS) to standard RARP has shown positive results in terms of functional outcomes in addition to the oncological outcomes. This article reviews the current perspectives of NS-RARP in terms of applied anatomy of the prostatic fascial planes, the neurovascular bundle (NVB), various NS techniques and postoperative functional outcomes. A non-systematic review was done using PubMed, Embase and Medline databases to retrieve and analyse articles in English, with following keywords "prostate cancer", "robotic radical prostatectomy", "nerve-sparing". The Delphi method was used with an expert panel of robotic surgeons in urology to analyse the potency outcomes of various published comparative and non-comparative studies. The literature has shown that NS-RARP involves various techniques and approaches while there is a lack of randomized studies to suggest the superiority of one over the other. Variables such as preoperative risk assessments, baseline potency, surgical anatomy of individual patients and surgeons' expertise play a major role in the outcomes. A tailored approach for each patient is required for applying the NS approach during RARP.