Robot-assisted pancreatoduodenectomy

Abstract

Pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) is considered as a complex and difficult surgical procedure even to the experi-enced surgeons, and it is thought to be the last frontier for mini-really invasive surgeons. Laparoscopic PD, despite the initial enthusiasm towards it, discourages laparoscopic surgeons by its long operating time and procedure-related fatigue resulting from technical difficulties associated with laparoscopic instruments and unstable camera platform. Although robotic surgical system with its known advantages has successfully overcome the limita-tions of traditional laparoscopic surgery, and completed the com-plex and advanced surgical procedures required in PD, reports on robot-assisted (laparobotic) PD remain few. Furthermore, there has not yet been a single report detailing PD techniques modified to take advantage of the Da Vinci platform. In this report, laparobotic PD was successfully performed on 7 patients. Five patients underwent pyloric preserving PD and 2 had stand-ard PD. All the 7 patients have been followed up till January 2009. The overall mean operative time was 326 minutes (290-400 minutes) and the mean length of postoperative stay was 10.2 days (5-30 days). There was no mortality. Five patients had perioperative complications but went on well after manage-ment. The stepwise cando-cranial approach PD is a unique approach, which is ideal for robotic platform. Although it has been shown to be feasible, safe, efficient, and reproducible in this small series, a larger scale multi-institutional study is needed to validate its efficacy. Key words: Pancreateduedenectomy; Da Vinci robotic surgery; Surgical technique