Survival, Continence and Potency (SCP) recovery after radical retropubic prostatectomy: A long-term combined evaluation of surgical outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: To offer a comprehensive account of surgical outcomes on a defined series of patients treated with radical retropubic prostatectomy (RRP) for prostate cancer in a single European Center after 5-year minimum follow-up according to the Survival, Continence and Potency (SCP) system. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We evaluated our Institutional database of patients who underwent RRP from November 1995 to September 2008. Oncological and functional outcomes were reported according to the recently proposed SCP system. RESULTS: The 5- and 10-year biochemical recurrence-free survival rates were 80.1% and 55.8%, respectively. At the end of follow-up, 611 (78.5%) patients were fully continent (C0), 107 (13.8%) used 1 pad for security (C1) and 60 (7.7%) patients were incontinent (C2). Of the 112 patients who underwent nerve-sparing RRP, 22 (19.6%) were fully potent without aids (P0), 13 (11.6%) were potent with assumption of PDE-5 inhibitors (P1) and 77 (68.8%) experienced erectile dysfunction (P2). The combined SCP outcomes were reported together only in 95 (12.2%) evaluable patients. In patients preoperatively continent and potent, who received a nerve-sparing and did not require adjuvant therapy, oncological and functional success was attained by 29 (30.5%) patients. In the subgroup of 508 patients not evaluable for potency recovery, oncological and continence outcomes were obtained in 357 patients (70.3%). CONCLUSION: Survival, Continence and Potency (SCP) classification offer a comprehensive report of surgical results, even in those patients who do not represent the best category, thus allowing to provide a much more accurate evaluation of outcomes after RP.