Safety Analysis and Oncological Outcomes in Endoscopic Bladder Tumor Resection With Laser Holmium Compared With Transurethral Resection: a Prospective and Randomized Study

Bladder urothelial cancer is the second most common urologic tumor and represents a worldwide public health problem. Most cases are diagnosed as non-muscle invasive tumors, and can be treated with transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT). However, the electrical energy-based TURBT fragments the tumor, burning it to its own muscular layer leading to artifacts that may spoil the histopathological analysis, resulting in understaging after the first TURBT ranging from 30-64%, depending on the presence of detrusor muscle. Modern laser technologies have been emerging as an alternative to classical TURB using en bloc tumor resection technique (ERBT). Therefore, the laser is applied on tumor's pedicle to resect the whole and intact tumor without fragmentation or fulguration as occurs in TURBT. The purpose of using laser if to improve the resection quality, decrease intra and perioperative complications, avoid re-TURBT and reduce recurrence rates at the resection site and in distant sites. Thus, the purpose of this study is to evaluate Laser Holmium use for large tumors resection (>3cm), reducing complications, costs, and the need for new approaches, and improving the muscle layers samples.