Intrafascial versus interfascial nerve sparing in radical prostatectomy for localized prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

The present study aimed to systematically evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the intrafascial and interfascial nerve sparing (ITR-NS and ITE-NS) radical prostatectomy. PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases were searched for eligible studies. Meta-analysis with random-effects model was performed. Six comparative trials were selected and embraced in this research, including one randomized controlled trial, three prospective comparative trials, and two retrospective comparative trials. With regard to perioperative parameters, no significant association of operative time, blood loss, transfusion rates, duration of catheterization, and hospital stay existed between ITR-NS and ITE-NS. With respect to the functional results, ITR-NS had advantages in terms of both continence and potency recovery compared with ITE-NS. In reference to the oncologic results, the ITR-NS showed lower overall positive surgical margin (PSM) compared with ITE-NS but pT2 PSM and biochemical recurrence free rates were similar to the two surgical types. This study demonstrates that ITR-NS has better continence at 6 mo and 36 mo and better potency recovery at 6 mo and 12 mo postoperatively, regardless of the surgical technique. The cancer control of ITR-NS was also better than that of ITE-NS. This may be explained by the fact that patients in ITE-NS group present higher risk cancer than patients in ITR-NS group.