Role of multimodal anaesthetic in post-operative analgesic requirement for robotic assisted radical prostatectomy

Purpose: Robotic assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RARP) is considered as standard of care for surgical management of localised prostate cancer. Procedure specific postoperative pain management (PROSPECT) guidelines are available for open radical prostatectomy. There is a lack of evidence for optimal pain management protocol in patients undergoing robotic radical prostatectomy. This study investigates the impact of multimodal anaesthetic on post-operative analgesic requirements. Methods and materials: In our Institute, RARP is performed with a multimodal anaesthetic technique. Forty-one consecutive cases from October 2018 to March 2019 operated on by the same surgeon and anaesthetised by the same anaesthetic consultant were included in the study. All the patients received standardised multimodal anaesthetic technique. Data from visual analogue pain scores, nausea, vomiting and requirement of analgesics were collected from hospital records and results were analysed. Results: Our results showed that 60% of patients reported either no pain or mild pain. None of the patients required stronger opioids or parenteral analgesic. Only three patients required antiemetic. Length of hospital stay was 1.19 days which is comparable to published outcomes from high volume centres performing RARP. Conclusion: Our study adds to the currently published literature that RARP when combined with the multimodal anaesthetic technique can significantly reduce stronger opioid analgesic requirement in the post-operative period without compromising LOS.