With Radical Prostatectomy, the Experience of the Surgeon Matters

Common sense would suggest that the patients of surgeons who have more experience with performing specific operations would have less surgical morbidity, shorter recovery times, and, possibly, improved cure rates or lower risk for recurrence. Theoretically, a surgeon’s learning curve is a function of the time necessary to reach a threshold at which surgical outcomes are better than those of less-experienced surgeons. Surgical morbidity and mortality can be measured in a relatively straightforward manner, but disease outcomes can be more difficult to assess. Investigators from four major U.S. academic centers studied the association between surgeons’ prior experience with performing radical prostatectomy and biochemical recurrence of prostat…