Aim: There are no set rules for how surgical complications are reported in the medical research about urologic cancer. However, the results of surgeries are often used to determine how well the surgical techniques and skills of the surgeons are working. This study examines how well complications are reported in the research papers about urologic conditions. Methods: We examined reports that were found through a search in MEDLINE. These reports looked at the results of different types of surgeries, such as radical prostatectomy, radical cystectomy, retroperitoneal node dissection, and radical/partial nephrectomy. We analyzed these reports using 12 specific criteria that are commonly used to report surgical complications. We reviewed two sets of surgical series: one with 72 patients who underwent open surgery and another with 37 patients who underwent minimally invasive surgery. These series were published between May 2021 and April 2022, and each series included at least 64 patients. Results: We found that some important criteria were often not reported in these studies. These included the definitions of complications (which were not provided in 78% of the studies), the severity or grade of complications (not reported in 68% of the studies), data on patients who were treated on an outpatient basis (missing in 65% of the studies), information about other health conditions the patients had (not included in 58% of the studies), and the length of time that was covered in the reports (not mentioned in 57% of the studies). We also compared the reporting of minimally invasive surgical series to open series. We found that 48% of the minimally invasive series met fewer than 5 of the 10 reporting criteria, while only 20% of the open series fell into the same category. Out of the 37 studies that reported the severity of complications, only 8 (17%) used a numeric grading system. The majority of the studies (80% out of 33) used a "major versus minor" categorization. However, these studies used 26 different definitions for what was considered "major" complications. Conclusion: The way surgical complications are reported in the field of urologic oncology varies greatly, which makes it difficult to compare the negative effects of different surgical techniques and their outcomes. In order to address this issue, it is important to establish standard guidelines that can ensure consistent and reliable reporting of surgical complications. These guidelines will help improve the quality of reporting and enable meaningful comparisons between surgical techniques and their associated risks.

Urologic Cancer, Surgical Complications, Minimally Invasive.