Intermediate Term Functional Outcomes and Quality of Life in Patients With High Versus Low and Intermediate Risk Prostate Cancer Treated by Robot-assisted Laparoscopic Prostatectomy (RALP)

The Be-RALP database is Belgian prospective multicenter database governed by the Belgian cancer registry. This was established by a collaboration between the Belgian association of Urology (BAU), the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI) and the Belgian cancer registry.

Twenty-five centres, on average 90% of all Belgian robotic centres, collected prospective data of 9235 patients from October 2009 until February 2016. These data is collected by local data managers or physicians and was required to receive reimbursion from the NIHDI for the disposables used during robot surgery. After filling in the data by the local datamanagers, the data is centralised. In Brussels the data is protected and further used by data managers and statisticians. In this system in-and output of data is strictly separated. Patient data is encoded to ensure absolute privacy. Then the data is checked upon correctness by using random checks. Data is completed where necessary.

These parameters increase the quality of data handling and database.

The final database consists of baseline pre-, per- and postoperative data as well as four standardised follow-up registrations (on 1, 3, 12 and 24 months), with follow-up data still being collected. In each follow-up registration, functional parameters and quality of life are re-assessed together with postoperative treatment status and PSA.

The Be-RALP database collected patient details of 9235 patients treated by RARP between 2009 and 2016. Patients with macro metastasis and initial PSA values higher than 100 (probable undetected micro metastasis) were excluded for this study, as well as all pT0, patients with surgery after the closing date and patients with invalid survival data. Further exclusion of patients with missing values for nerve sparing, extend of nerve sparing and risk category resulted in a group of 8306 patients.