Dalibor Pacík
The author in his review presents a rational overview of the so often proclaimed benefits of robot assisted radical prostatectomy over classical surgery and stresses the fact that these benefits are not supported by any evidence-based data. In fact they represent marketing strategy more than reality. He also emphasizes that the European Association of Urology Guidelines for Prostate Cancer do not consider robotic approach as a superior in the surgical treatment of this disease. Even the EAU general secretary professor Per-Anders Abrahamson in his recent lecture on this topic treated both approaches as equivalent and stressed the absence of any data demonstrating the superiority of any of these approaches. The author presents a large body of literature (both Czech and foreign literature) informing about equivalent results of both approaches (when performed by experts in specialized centres) and even worse outcomes based on healthcare insurance companies data without stratification according to the individual centres of excellence. The author also focuses on the economic burden of both approaches, in the time of financial crisis and the demand for savings, which is significantly higher in robot assisted approach and questions the justification of paying significantly higher costs in the absence of proven medical benefits.