Postoperative pain, recovery and discharge after robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy: A multicentre, single blinded, randomised controlled trial.

Background: General anaesthesia is standard of care for patients undergoing robot assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP). However, postoperative pain and bladder discomfort remains an issue, and optimising pain management could improve recovery and promote earlier home discharge. The main objective of this trial was to evaluate if patients receiving spinal anaesthesia are more frequently home ready at 8 pm on the same day compared with multimodal pain management following RALP under general anaesthesia.

Methods: This pragmatic, randomised controlled, multicentre trial was performed between January 2019 to December 2021. Patients undergoing RALP under general anaesthesia were randomised to either multimodal analgesia using parecoxib and morphine intra-operatively (Group GM) or spinal anaesthesia with bupivacaine and sufentanil (Group GS). The primary aim, home readiness, was assessed using a post-anaesthesia discharge scoring system.

Results: Of 202 patients analysed, 27% patients reached home readiness criteria after 12 h, 46% after 24 h and 79% after 48 h, without differences between the groups. Urge to pass urine was greater in group GM than in group GS (p ⟨0.001) and lasted for a median of two hours in both groups. More patients expressed satisfaction with postoperative care in group GS (p ⟨0.001). No other significant differences were found between the groups.

Discussion: We found no difference in time to home readiness between the groups. Approximately one-fourth of the patients achieved home readiness the same day after surgery without difference between the groups. Fewer patients had urge, and patient satisfaction was greater in group GS.