Caution sounded on robot-aided prostate surgery

A nationwide study raises serious concerns about robot-assisted prostate cancer surgery, a procedure that hospitals have widely advertised as having fewer complications than standard operations. Harvard Medical School researchers found that cancer patients who underwent minimally invasive prostate removal—now usually done with remote-controlled robots—were more than twice as likely to experience incontinence or impotence a year and a half after their operations than patients who had traditional surgery using an open incision.