Purpose of review: Hospital and surgical volumes, as well as complications, are considered to influence intra and postoperative results in most surgical operations. This trend is also seen in uro-oncologic surgery. The objective of this review is to critically analyze the most recent literature to give a comprehensive overview on whether surgical and hospital volumes have an impact, and whether regionalization of the procedure should be advised.
Recent findings: Uro-oncologic surgery has recently become more regionalized, and data coming from different population-based analyses appear to support this trend. Recent data suggest that the most beneficial procedures could be radical cystectomy, radical prostatectomy, and partial nephrectomy. For radical cystectomy, even considering different cut-off values, saw better results for postoperative complications, mortality and long-term oncological and functional outcomes in patients treated in high-volume institutions. Centralization of radical prostatectomy seems to affect short-term outcomes and costs related to prostate cancer treatment, with high-volume institutions providing more affordable treatments reducing cancer recurrence and progression. Partial nephrectomy is more frequently performed in cT1-b cancer in high-volume than low-volume institutions. Additionally, in this setting it has a higher success rate and lower complications, shorter operative time, and fewer prolonged hospital stays.
Summary: Regionalization of the procedure in high-volume centers seems to have impact on postoperative morbidity and mortality for the most frequent major uro-oncological procedures: radical prostatectomy, radical cystectomy, and partial nephrectomy; but there are insufficient data available on other procedures.