The Australian Cancer Council provides an ‘optimal care pathway for men with prostate cancer’ guideline for the standard of care for patients. The guidelines give a timeframe in which the investigations, diagnosis, staging and treatment should be completed. The optimal care pathway recommends that patients should be seen by a Urologist within 4 weeks of referral, the MRI, prostate biopsy, and staging should be completed within 4 weeks initial appointment and treatment should be commenced within 3 months. The objective of this study was to determine how a large, tertiary public hospital in Australia compares to the optimal care pathway in providing timely care.

A retrospective audit was completed for all patients who underwent a robotic-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy (RALP) in 2024 at this institution. For each patient, the date of the referral, booking for prostate biopsy, booking for RALP and date of RALP was recorded. The recorded data was then directly compared to the recommended durations in the optimal care pathway.

There were 83 patients who had a RALP for prostate cancer in 2024. The average number of days between the referral and booking a prostate biopsy was 91 days, between booking and having the biopsy was 77 days, between the biopsy and booking the RALP was 77 days and between booking and having the RALP was 137 days. The total number of days between referral and having a RALP was 382 days. The initial appointment following referral at our institution was 63 days longer than recommended, the time to complete the investigations was 126 days longer and the time to RALP was 47 days longer. In total, from referral to RALP, it took an extra 236 days than what is recommended in the optimal care pathway.

The time it took to manage prostate cancer at this institution was significantly longer than what is recommended in the optimal care pathway by the Australian Cancer Council.