Tag: PRISMA

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Article of the Week: Muscolofascial Reconstruction after RP

July 13, 2016/by admin Z.9

Every Week the Editor-in-Chief selects an Article of the Week from the current issue of BJUI. The abstract is reproduced below and you can click on the button to read the full article, which is freely available to all readers for at least 30 days from the time of this post.

In addition to the article itself, there is an accompanying editorial written by a prominent member of the urological community. This blog is intended to provoke comment and discussion and we invite you to use the comment tools at the bottom of each post to join the conversation.

Finally, the third post under the Article of the Week heading on the homepage will consist of additional material or media. This week we feature a video from Dr. Francesco Alessandro Mistretta, discussing his paper.

If you only have time to read one article this week, it should be this one.

Posterior musculofascial reconstruction after radical prostatectomy: an updated systematic review and a meta-analysis

Angelica A.C. Grasso*, Francesco A. Mistretta*, Marco Sandri†, Gabriele Cozzi*, Elisa De Lorenzis*, Marco Rosso*, Giancarlo Albo*, Franco Palmisano*, Alex Mottrie‡, Alexander Haese§, Markus Graefen§, Rafael Coelho¶, Vipul R. Patel¶ and Bernardo Rocco*¶

*Department of Urology, Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda-Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, University of Milan, Milan, Italy, †DMS StatLab, Data Methods and Systems Statistical Laboratory, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy, ‡OLV Robotic Surgery Institute, Aalst, Belgium, §Martini Clinic Prostate Cancer Center, University Clinic Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, and ¶Global Robotics Institute, Florida Hospital-Celebration Health Celebration, University of Central Florida School of Medicine, Orlando, FL, USA

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To evaluate the influence of posterior musculofascial plate reconstruction (PR) on early return of continence after radical prostatectomy (RP); an updated systematic review of the literature. A systematic review of the literature was performed in June 2015, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement and searching Medline, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science databases. We searched the terms posterior reconstruction prostatectomy, double layer anastomosis prostatectomy across the ‘Title’ and ‘Abstract’ fields of the records, with the following limits: humans, gender (male), and language (English). The authors reviewed the records to identify studies comparing cohorts of patients who underwent RP with or without restoration of the posterior aspect of the rhabdosphincter. A meta-analysis of the risk ratios estimated using data from the selected studies was performed. In all, 21 studies were identified, including three randomised controlled trials. The overall analysis of comparative studies showed that PR improved early continence recovery at 3–7, 30, and 90 days after catheter removal, while the continence rate at 180 days was statistically but not clinically affected. Statistically significantly lower anastomotic leakage rates were described after PR. There were no significant differences for positive surgical margins rates or for complications such as acute urinary retention and bladder neck stricture. The analysis confirms the benefits at 30 days after catheter removal already discussed in the review published in 2012, but also shows a significant advantage in terms of urinary continence recovery in the first 90 days. A multicentre prospective randomised controlled trial is currently being conducted in several institutions around the world to better assess the effectiveness of PR in facilitating an earlier recovery of postoperative urinary continence.

Editorial: The Jury on Posterior Muscolofascial Reconstruction is still out

July 13, 2016/by Philipp Dahm

In their systematic review and meta-analysis, Grasso et al. [1] address the question of whether posterior muscolofascial reconstruction (PMR), the so-called Rocco stitch, positively affects urinary continence after radical prostatectomy. The relevance of the question to this structured form of inquiry is that individual studies to date have been inconclusive. We recognize Sir Archie Cochrane, who gave his name to the Cochrane Collaboration that pioneered the methods for conducting systematic reviews, for emphasizing the critical importance of looking at the entire body of evidence in a structured manner when seeking to answer a clinical question [2]. In the present study, which included both randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies of variable methodological quality, a favourable impact of PMR across all postoperative time points (3–7 days, 30 days, 3 and 6 months) was observed. The effect was most pronounced early on at the time of catheter removal, when the patients undergoing PMR were nearly twice as likely as the control group (risk ratio 1.9; 95% CI 1.3–2.9) to be continent, thereby suggesting a major benefit of this approach. It should be noted, however, that this analysis was dominated by the observational studies, particularly retrospective observational studies, which offer the least degree of methodological rigor.

Even more important, therefore, than the act of pooling across studies is the rating of the quality of evidence for the body of evidence on an outcome-specific basis. Based on the GRADE approach, which has become the most widely endorsed framework for rating the quality of evidence, we would initially place a high and low level of confidence in a body of evidence drawn from RCTs and observational studies, respectively [3]. As a result, one might plan a separate analysis of those two groups of studies first, and only move to pool them if their results were similar. In this case, the results from the RCTs and observational studies were different, with prospective and retrospective studies reporting larger, probably exaggerated effect sizes; however, it is also understood that other aspects such as study limitation (risk of bias), inconsistency, impression, indirectness and risk publication bias may lower our confidence in the effect estimates from RCTs [4]. Focusing on the body of evidence from RCTs alone (Table 1) we have ‘moderate’ confidence that PMR may not improve early continence at the time of catheter removal. Similarly, the few RCTs that contributed to the assessment of continence at later timepoints do not provide evidence that continence is affected favourably, although our confidence for those outcomes is only ‘low’ or ‘very low’, suggesting that future trials may change these estimates of effect. Meanwhile, it should be noted that none of the RCTs appeared to provide information on the potential downsides of PMR, such as rates of urinary retention or bladder neck contracture. As a result, enough uncertainty remains to state that the jury on PMR is still out; this is consistent with the authors’ call for a future high-quality trial, which is reportedly ongoing. While PMR is already widely used by open and robot-assisted prostatectomy surgeons around the globe, this example sheds light on current evidentiary standards of surgical innovation. Following the IDEAL recommendations, it would be much preferred if the urological community committed to well designed trials for novel surgical approaches and device-dependent interventions up front, before moving to widespread dissemination [5].

Read the full article

Philipp Dahm

Department of Urology, Minneapolis VA Health Care System, Urology Section 112D and University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

References

1 Grasso AAC, Mistretta FA, Sandri M et al. Posterior musculofascial reconstruction after radical prostatectomy: an updated systematic review and a meta-analysis. BJU Int 2016; 118: 20–34.

2 Hajebrahimi S, Dahm P, Buckingham J. Evidence-based urology in practice: the cochrane library. BJU Int 2009; 104: 1048–9

3 Canﬁeld SE, Dahm P. Rating the quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations using GRADE. World J Urol 2011; 29: 311–7

4 Guyatt GH, Oxman AD, Vist GE et al. GRADE: what is “quality of evidence” and why is it important to clinicians? BMJ 2008; 336: 995–8

5 McCulloch P. The IDEAL recommendations and urological innovation. World J Urol 2011; 29: 331–6

Video: Posterior Muscolofascial Reconstruction after RP

July 13, 2016/by admin Z.9

Posterior musculofascial reconstruction after radical prostatectomy: an updated systematic review and a meta-analysis

Read the full article

March #urojc: Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer – Is it a gift that keeps on giving?

March 18, 2016/4 Comments/by Henry Woo

The International Urology Journal Club on Twitter is now well into its 4^th year. The subject for the March 2016 discussion was a paper published in the BMJ entitled “Second Malignancies after radiotherapy for prostate cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis”.

Lead and senior authors, Chris Wallis and Rob Nam were kind enough to make themselves available to participate in this discussion. Rob Nam made use of the #urojc guest twitter account.

The literature was searched using Medline and Embase and the method of review was the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Meta-analysis of Observational studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines for reporting of this systematic review and meta-analysis.

Chris Wallis provided an excellent TL:DR summary with the following tweet.

It is well recognized that secondary malignancies following radiation exposure could take many years to become apparent.

The responses were fairly predictable but nevertheless an important point to explore.

Early in the discussion, there was also relevant reminder of the issue of differences in odds ratios and absolute risk. That said, consideration needs to be given to the ‘big ticket’ nature of secondary malignancy where even a small absolute risk drives a great deal of interest in this subject matter.

An interesting finding from the study was that the risk of secondary malignancy was less with brachytherapy compared with external beam radiation.

Further to this, is it possible that there could be a difference between HDR and seed brachytherapy? An interesting thought although not specifically covered in the paper.

A more controversial aspect to the discussion was whether the risk of secondary malignancy would justify screening or surveillance. The following exchange was worthy of note.

Whilst there is nothing in the way of documented guidelines or actual evidence to demonstrate a benefit of surveillance, it seems something worthy of consideration for future practice guidelines – in other words, recommendations one way or the other.

Rob Nam refers to a third paper on radiation outcomes in the context of previous surgery. This BJC paper, the Lancet Oncology paper (previous discussed at a #urojc in 2014) and now the current paper could cheekily be called the Nam Trilogy – make note that you heard this term here for the first time.

To what extent should we be counseling our patients on the risk of secondary malignancy if they are to undergo radiation for prostate cancer? Is this just another factor to encourage surgery over radiotherapy? Will there be no change in practice, particularly in the US where many lucrative radiation oncology services are actually owned by urological surgeon private practice groups?

The state of radiation oncology practice is different outside the US and my own personal thoughts on the matter are that the Nam Trilogy of papers will create a series of well cited ‘evidence’ that will further shift the weight of opinion towards surgery over radiotherapy as a primary treatment for localized prostate cancer.

Anybody who followed the March installment of the #urojc would have been impressed by the high level of interaction by the authors Chris Wallis and Rob Nam. A particular mention should be given to Sabin Motwani who as a radiation oncologist, provided valuable input to the discussion.

Please do join us for the April installment of the #urojc and I encourage you all to email, tweet or DM your suggestions for papers to be discussed. Please also, feel free to volunteer to write up a monthly summary for publication on the BJUI blogs. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Rustom Manecksha who was the winner of the 2016 BJUI SoMe Award for #urojc – a reflection to the quality of his participation and support for this online educational activity.

Henry Woo is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the Sydney Adventist Hospital Clinical School of the University of Sydney. He is the coordinator of the International Urology Journal Club on Twitter.

Tag Archive for: PRISMA

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Posterior musculofascial reconstruction after radical prostatectomy: an updated systematic review and a meta-analysis

Posterior musculofascial reconstruction after radical prostatectomy: an updated systematic review and a meta-analysis