TOPLINE:

Adding a surgery-specific module to a perioperative telemedicine programme significantly improved functional outcomes after radical prostatectomy, resulting in better urinary continence, a reduced need for physical therapy, and greater patient satisfaction.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers in France conducted a multicentre, prospective trial to assess the impact of adding a surgery-specific module to an optimised digital perioperative programme on improving functional outcomes after radical prostatectomy.
• They included 333 patients (mean age, 65.3 years) who underwent robot-assisted radical prostatectomy, of whom 156 received standard perioperative care plus a specialised digital coaching programme (intervention group) and 177 received standard perioperative care (control group).
• The digital programme, delivered via a mobile app, included a module for preoperative and postoperative rehabilitation specific to radical prostatectomy.
• The primary endpoint was the urinary continence recovery, defined as using no or one safety pad per day at 6 weeks after surgery.

TAKEAWAY:

• At 6 weeks post-surgery, a higher proportion of patients in the intervention vs control group achieved continence (83.3% vs 68.4%; P = .002); the use of the digital pathway was also an independent predictor of urinary continence recovery at 6 weeks.
• Moreover, the need for postoperative physiotherapy for persistent incontinence was significantly reduced in the intervention vs control group (28% vs 59%; P < .001).
• Patients following the digital programme experienced fewer unplanned visits (P = .025), lower reoperation rates (P = .020), more same-day discharge surgery (P = .030), and higher satisfaction (9.4/10 vs 8.3/10; P < .001).
• The benefit of the digital programme persisted at 6 and 12 months, with improvements in continence rates of 14% (P < .001) and 6% (P = .004), respectively, seen in the intervention vs control group.

IN PRACTICE:

"The use of such digital pathways overcomes organizational and resource constraints and could potentially facilitate the diffusion of benefit-proven pre- and rehabilitation programs at a large scale," the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Alessandro Uleri, La Croix du Sud Hospital, Nantes, France. It was published online on September 19, 2025, in Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases.

LIMITATIONS:

The main limitation was the absence of randomisation in the study design. Additionally, access to digital technology may have created selection biases, particularly among older adult patients. Long-term follow-up data were not available.

DISCLOSURES:

No funding information was provided for the study. Two authors reported having ownership in AIMED2 company.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.