Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To address the association of perioperative surgical checklist across variable surgical expertise with transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) accuracy and oncologic outcomes in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).MATERIALS AND METHODS: we relied on our prospective collaborative database of patients treated with TURBT between 2012 and 2017. Surgical experience was stratified into three groups: resident vs young vs expert consultants. The association of surgical experience with detrusor muscle (DM) presence and adherence to the standardized peri-procedural 9-items TURBT checklist was evaluated with logistic regression models. A Cox regression model was used to investigate the association of surgical experience with recurrence-free survival (RFS).RESULTS: A total of 503 patients were available for analysis. TURBT was performed by expert consultants in 265 (52.7%) patients, by young consultants in 149 patients (29.6%) and by residents in 89 patients (17.7%). Residents were more likely to have DM in the TURBT specimen than expert consultants (OR: 1.75, 95%CI 1.03-2.99, p=0.04). Conversely, no differences in DM presence were observed between young vs expert consultants (OR: 1.09, 95%CI 0.71-1.70, p=0.69). The median checklist completion rate was higher for both residents and young consultants when compared to experts counterparts (56% and 56% vs 44%, p=0.009). When focusing on patients receiving a 2nd look TURBT, the persistent disease was associated with resident status (OR: 4.24, 95%CI 1.14-17.70, p=0.037) at initial TURBT. Surgical experience was not associated with 5-years RFS.CONCLUSION: Surgeon's experience in case of adequate perioperative surgical checklist implementation was inversely associated with the presence of DM in the specimen but directly linked to higher probability of persistent disease at Re-TURBT, although no 5-yr RFS differences were noted.

View details for DOI 10.1111/bju.15920

View details for PubMedID 36251366