Utilization of Pelvic Lymph Node Dissection for Patients With Low-Risk Prostate Cancer Treated With Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy

While PLND is not recommended for low-risk PCa by clinical practice guidelines, it was performed frequently (36.7%) in a large hospital-based data set. PLND in this population was of lower quality (nodal yield) and had less utility of detecting nodal metastatic disease than PLND in intermediate/high-risk PCa. Treatment at a high-volume or academic center was associated with increased use of PLND. Reasons for the variation in practice patterns should be investigated to improve the value of PCa care.