Prostate cancer (CaP) is a heterogeneous disease with high variability in regards to clinical outcome and therapeutic response. While some men will develop an indolent CaP not affecting life expectancy, others might die of CaP. Thus, the process of screening and diagnosing, as well as the therapeutic options and monitoring can be difficult for the urologist—to distinguish between lethal and indolent CaP still remains a challenge.

Translational medicine (TM) components of prospective clinical trials provide an invaluable opportunity to test hypotheses that contribute to our knowledge of human disease biology and/or the mechanism of action of a given therapeutic intervention. Our ability to sample tumors and their microenvironment, and the depth and breadth of biological information that can be extracted from them, has increased exponentially in recent years. This information is critical to guide the next steps clinical research if we are to accelerate the pace of progress in cancer treatment.

Considerable evidence suggests that partial nephrectomy (PN) for localized renal cell carcinoma has equivalent oncological outcomes when compared to radical nephrectomy [1,2]. Another unique feature of PN over radical nephrectomy relates to better renal functional preservation, which may confer a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, translating into better overall survival [3]. Various surgical approaches for PN have been described, including open (OPN) and minimally invasive techniques, namely laparoscopic (LPN) and the robot-assisted (RAPN).