Purpose: Laparoscopic Simple Prostatectomy (LSP) has been recently developed to remove large prostatic adenomas causing lower urinary tract symptoms. The advantages of the laparoscopic technique versus the standard open technique is still a matter of debate. This review focuses on the background, technique, results and future perspectives of LSP.
Materials and Methods: A detailed search in Pubmed database using the keywords “laparoscopic adenomectomy”,”laparoscopic simple prostatectomy”, “laparoscopic Millin” and “laparoscopic retropubic simple prostatectomy” revealed 14 published articles. All of the articles were thoroughly inspected for the surgical technique, patient population, results and discussion. Depending on the data derived from the articles, the body of this review was constructed.
Results: LSP is still a technique under investigation as there are still few articles with very small number of patients and it has not been compared with the standard open technique in a prospective randomized fashion. Additionally, there is not a clear consensus that the classical advantages of laparoscopic surgery can be seen in LSP compared to open surgery.
Conclusion: To become the Standard technique, LSP must be compared to open simple prostatectomy in prospective randomized trials. The data we have now keeps this technique investigational.
