Comparison of intracorporeal versus extracorporeal urinary diversion after robot-assisted radical cystectomy at a medium-sized facility

Background: The aim of this study is to compare the perioperative outcomes and learning curves between intracorporeal and extracorporeal urinary diversion at our medium-sized institution. Methods: Between January 2018 and September 2020, a single surgeon at our institution performed 46 consecutive robot-assisted radical cystectomies with ileal conduit. We compared the perioperative outcomes between patients who underwent intracorporeal versus extracorporeal urinary diversion. We also investigated learning curves for the first and last 10 patients in each group. Results: The extracorporeal group had shorter overall operative time (P = 0.003) and urinary diversion time (P < 0.0001) than the intracorporeal group. The intracorporeal group had shorter length of hospital stay (P = 0.02). There was no difference in complication and readmission rates. The extracorporeal group demonstrated no difference between the first and last 10 patients for overall operative time or time for cystectomy, lymph node dissection, or urinary diversion. However, the intracorporeal group had shorter urinary diversion time for the last 10 patients compared with the first 10 patients. The first 10 patients in the extracorporeal group had shorter overall operative time than the first 10 in the intracorporeal group, but there was no difference for the last 10 patients. Conclusions: Intracorporeal urinary diversion requires longer overall operative time than extracorporeal diversion for the first 10 patients, due to longer urinary diversion time. However, there is no difference in overall operative time for the last 10 patients. The benefit of intracorporeal over extracorporeal urinary diversion was not confirmed at our medium-sized institution.