The Efficacy of Pre-operative Educational Pelvic Floor Intervention on Urinary Continence in Patients Underwent Robotic Prostatectomy. A Randomized Clinical Trial

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer between male population, with 161,300 new cases a year in the USA and an incidence of 10% in Italy. Since many years surgery is the treatment of choice, both at an early stage and in advanced cases, but involves side effects. From the post-operative problem presents in literature, urinary incontinence (UI) is the most common of long-term sequelae and significantly affects the quality of life and the psychological aspect in the post-surgical period. The incidence of UI after prostatectomy surgery varies between 0.8% and 87% in the first 3 and 6 months and between 5% and 44.5% after 1 year. This variability depends on the UI definition and the type of measurement used, which are not homogeneous among the various studies in the literature. Evaluations that are not objective make it difficult to compare the results obtained, thus creating discrepancies.

To date, robotic prostatectomy is becoming the gold standard for its recognized greater accuracy when compared with the open surgery and laparoscopic procedure, with a reduced learning curve for operators and giving better post-surgical results. Progress technological aspects, such as the three-dimensional vision of the operative field, the macroscopic magnification and better image resolution, have made the robotic procedure a less invasive surgery with better functional outcomes. Despite these factors, UI is still present and in the majority of cases management is not completely evidence based. Moreover there is not yet a definite consensus regarding the predictive factors (age, disease stage, body weight, prostate volume and other comorbidities) in the incidence of the UI.

When patients presents UI diagnoses, the conservative intervention through the pelvic floor rehabilitation is recommended in an attempt to reduce the impact of this complication. Muscle strengthening and pelvic floor awareness after surgery are used for years in clinical practice with results widely documented in the literature, but their effectiveness in the pre-operative period, especially if after robotic surgery, has not yet been sufficiently studied. Currently, there are discrepant results mainly due to the type of rehabilitative methodology applied and the time of beginning the preoperative treatment. Our study tries to evaluate, through an objective and reproducible measurement, the efficacy of a preoperative educational method in urinary incontinence after robotic prostatectomy.