The US-based RAZOR (Randomised Open versus Robotic Cystectomy) trial revealed that robotic surgery is equally effective as traditional open surgery in order to treat bladder cancer. The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute and the discovery was published in the Lancet.

Dr Dipen Parekh from the University of Miami was the first author of the study accompanied by three Loyola Medicine urologists namely Dr Gopal Gupta, Dr Marcus Quek and Dr Alex Gorbonos as co-authors.

After two years of surgery, nearly 72.3% of the patients from the robotic surgery group were alive with no disease progression, compared to 71.6% of the open surgery group. Only 67% of the robotic surgery patients had experienced adverse effects compared to 69% in open surgery group.

Patients who had gone through robotic surgery need to stay for 6 days in hospital, whereas it was an average of 7 days for open surgery patients. Robotic surgery time is longer compared to open surgery but robotic surgery patients lost less than half of the amount of blood compared to open surgery patients. There are however, no significant complications that might affect the quality of life.

Dr. Gopal Gupta said, “It is important to conduct these trials before widespread adoption of technology, as has been the case with robotic prostatectomy.”