Backgrounds: This study aimed to describe the morbidity and mortality in older patients undergoing laparoscopic radical cystectomy (LRC) and compare the outcomes of LRC between octogenarians and younger patients (< 80 years) in a Japanese multicenter cohort.
Methods: We identified 433 patients (80 octogenarians) who underwent LRC in a retrospective multicenter database from 10 institutions. The perioperative outcomes and the 90-day and late (> 90-day) complications according to the Clavien-Dindo classification were compared between the octogenarians and younger patients. Recurrence-free survival (RFS), overall survival (OS), and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were measured by the Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: Compared with the younger group, the octogenarian group included a significantly higher proportion of women, patients with a lower body mass index, patients with a lower preoperative albumin level, and patients with a history of abdominal surgery. The 90-day rates of all complications and major complications (grades III-V) were 50.0% and 20.0% among octogenarians and 54.7% and 16.4% among younger patients. The 90-day mortality rate among octogenarians was 3.8%. The 2-year RFS, CSS, and OS rates for octogenarians stratified by pathological stage was 95.2, 100, and 100% for ≤ pT1; 50.7, 76.6, and 56.1% for pT2; 33.6, 82.5, and 72.6% for ≥ pT3; and 23.1, 42.2, and 37.5% for pN + or distant metastasis, respectively. There was significant difference between octogenarians and younger patients only in 2-year OS for pT2 (56.1% vs 87.7%, p = 0.03).
Conclusions: This study revealed that LRC can be performed for selected octogenarians with a complication rate similar to that of younger patients. Appropriate risk evaluation and modification of surgical procedures are necessary for octogenarians.
Keywords: Bladder cancer; Complication; Elderly; Laparoscopy; Octogenarians; Radical cystectomy.