A Procedural Checklist for Transurethral Resection of Bladder Tumors (TURBT) Enhances Operative Dictation and Assesses Surgeon Accuracy of Tumor Characteristic Predictions.

Background: A lack of standardization is pervasive in procedural application and reporting templates for TURBT with the use of a surgical checklist proposed as a means for quality improvement.

Objective: To introduce a TURBT checklist to assess surgeon prediction accuracy and the impact of standardized documentation on quality of resection and oncologic outcomes.

Methods: Nine critical elements of a high-quality TURBT identified by literature review were incorporated into a prospectively implemented checklist for operative reports. The checklist included both visualized and predicted tumor characteristics. A retrospective single-institution analysis compared quality of dictation pre- and post-checklist implementation. Surgeon predictions were compared to final pathology reports to determine rates of concordance. Kaplan-Meier curves examined the association of checklist use with recurrence free survival (RFS).

Results: 333 operative reports were included in this analysis, of which 107 (32.1%) were completed pre-checklist implementation. The average number of critical elements reported was 8.69 with checklist use compared to 4.99 without ( < 0.001). There was no significant difference in RFS between the pre- and post-checklist cohorts (log-rank test  = 0.53). Surgeons were least and most accurate in predicting low grade tumor (43.5%) and absence of muscle invasion (96.6%), respectively.

Conclusions: Incorporation of a TURBT surgical checklist improves operative dictation and quality of reporting but did not directly impact RFS. With quality of initial resection a proven correlate to recurrence rates, checklist implementation to improve surgical performance and long-term oncologic outcomes reveals an interesting area of exploration highlighting the need for more standardized methodology when performing these procedures.