Robots in Cancer Surgery: A Boon or Bane

摘要

It is an ongoing task to keep exploring and applying the best available technology to alleviate the pain and sufferings of the cancer patients. Since the discovery of robotic surgery, da Vinci surgical systems have played a special and significant role in cancer surgeries worldwide, however, surgeons are still skeptical with the clinical and oncological outcomes which are almost comparable to the laparoscopic approach in several cancers. Many meta-analyses using mostly retrospective studies indicated significant advantage of robotic surgery over laparoscopic or open surgery approaches for various cancers, however, scarcity of technically sound robot savvy surgeons and quality multicentered, multinational, coordinated, random clinical trials had not done justice to the positives of robotic surgery which were quite often suppressed by the negative factors like operative cost and oncological outcomes. Nevertheless, robotic surgery approach has been clinically accepted for hysterectomy and prostatectomy. This overview briefly discusses the comparative approaches (open, laparoscopic, robotic assisted) and their clinical outcomes in the surgery of various cancers.