Short Term Complications post Radical Cystectomy South Egypt Cancer Institute: 5 years’ experience

Background: Despite advances of surgical technique and perioperative management, radical cystectomy has been associated with a substantial risk of postoperative morbidity and mortality with variable rates of short-term complications and mortality. However, with meticulous patient selection, perioperative management and surgical procedures, it currently has acceptable low perioperative mortality rate and a low rate of complications which are manageable. The aim of this study was to define the surgical outcome of radical cystectomy for urinary bladder cancer management in the point of postoperative morbidities and mortalities related to different surgical procedures aiming to minimize them to achieve the best outcomes possible.
Method: This is a retrospective study of 456 patients who had underwent radical cystectomy at South Egypt Cancer Institute between a time period from January 2012 till December 2016, the data were collected from archive and cancer registration data base of surgical oncology department.
Results: The age of presentation was 57.7 ± 9.4 ranged from 34 to 87 years. Male to female ratio was 71.7%., 28.3% respectively. Sixteen percent of patients were hypertensive, 13.2% diabetic and 19.7% had liver cirrhosis. The average duration of hospital stay was 14.6±6.2 days and average operative time (hour) was 4.3±1.4 hours. Most of patients (3/5th) showed backpressure on kidneys (63.2%). The commonest diversion performed after radical cystectomy was ileal conduit diversion (39%) then ureterocolic diversion (30.9%), followed by orthotopic diversion (14.9%) and ureterocutenous diversion (12.9%) with a few percentage with rectal bladder (2.2%). Only 7.9% of patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Intra-operative complications were recognized in only 5.3% of patients. 64% of patients experienced one or more of post-operative complications within 90 day of surgery with the most common complication categories were sexual dysfunction (73.46%), genito-urinary (52.19%), gastro intestinal (48.25%), wound-related (41.25%), general (30%), lymphadenectomy-related (21%), pulmonary (6%) and psychological complications (2.6%).
Conclusion: Radical Cystectomy is a complex operation and has avoidable post-operative Morbidity and mortality. Various technical improvements of the surgical and anesthesia techniques, multi-disciplinary approach for correction/control of comorbidities and early postoperative rehabilitation have produced salutary effect in reducing the mortality.