New Findings Regarding the Influence of Assistants on Intraoperative Inflatable Penile Prosthesis Complications
Shuo-chieh Wu, MD, Amanda Swanton, MD, Martin Gross, MD.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, USA.
BACKGROUND:
Inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) placement is a critical component of urology residency education. Resident trainees are useful in IPP cases, but resident assistance is not always available to prosthetic urologists. Registered Nurse First Assistants (RNFAs) can also serve as capable assistants during IPP procedures. We reviewed our data to compare intraoperative and postoperative complications in IPP cases with residents or RNFAs as assistants. We also compared the differences in the surgical procedures with either type of assistant.
METHODS:
Medical records of patients who underwent IPP placement by a single surgeon between 2017 and 2020 were retrospectively reviewed with IRB approval. Baseline patient characteristics, details of surgical procedure, and outcomes were collected. A logistic regression model was used to identify predictors of complications. Student’s T test was used to examine for differences in total OR time between different assistants.
RESULTS:
A total of 210 patients who underwent IPP surgery were identified, among which 168 (80%) placements were assisted by RNFAs, and 42 (20%) by urology residents. Complications were reported in 37 (17.6%) patients. Clavien-Dindo complications were grades V (1%, n=2), IIIb (11%, n=23), II (0.5%, n=1), and I (7%, n=14). There was no significant difference in the rate of complications for IPP placement assisted by a resident or RNFA (OR 0.95, CI 0.35 - 2.31) but this was limited by the overall power in assessing complications. Resident-assisted IPP placements were found to be associated with longer operative time than those assisted by RNFAs (86.2 ± 23.1 min vs 72.9 ± 35.5 min, p<0.01). Patient factors including new IPP, BMI>30, DM, and positive urine culture were also not associated with increased complication rate. Current smokers were noted to have more complications (OR 2.51, CI 0.94 - 6.30), although this was not statistically significant. Patients were followed for 12.2 ± 10.8 months postoperatively.
CONCLUSIONS:
Resident-assisted IPP placement with a high-volume surgeon is not associated with observable increase rate of complications comparing to those assisted by RNFAs. Moreover, resident involvement is only associated with slight increase in operative time compared to RNFA-assisted IPP placement. Overall complications were low in this series.
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