Variability in Nerve Location During da Vinci Prostatectomy

Objectives
Preservation of nerves during da Vinci prostatectomy (dVP) has been clinically proven to be critical to preservation of urinary function and surgeon perception has been shown to be a poor predictor of nerve location during dVP. Despite this evidence, opinions still vary on the ability of surgeons to use anatomic landmarks to accurately identify these nerves during dVP and to predictably preserve urinary function.To explore the location of these critical nerves compared to anatomic landmarks and quantify the amount of variability, a single surgeon performed intraoperative nerve identification using the ProPep^® Nerve Monitoring System on a series of consecutive patients undergoing dVP.