Robot-assisted laparoscopy in gynecologic oncology

Abstract

As suggested in the literature, the use of robot-assisted laparoscopy leads to less intraoperative blood loss, less post operative pain and shorter hospital stays compared with those treated by more traditional surgical approaches. Despite the need for more extensive studies, robot-assisted surgery seems to represent a similar technological evolution as the laparoscopic approach 50 years ago.

New surgical technology: do we know what we are doing?

“…Five of these studies involved early stage cervical cancer, comparing the feasibility of RAH to LH (Sert et al 2007;Nezhat et al 2008a,b); RAH to OH (Boggess et al 2008b;Ko et al 2008); and RAH to LH and OH . A sixth study compared the feasibility of RAH to OH for advanced stage cervical cancer (Lambaudie et al 2008). All studies consisted of level III-2 or III-3 evidence.…”

“…It was difficult to determine whether the RAH cohort data was collected prospectively or retrospectively in several studies. Two studies were described as prospective (Lambaudie et al 2008;Nezhat et al 2008a,b) and one was described as retrospective (Ko et al 2008). The majority of the studies involved a historical cohort/control and the RAH cases were undertaken in a subsequent period upon implementation of the RAH program at the particular institution.…”

“…The majority of these data were reported uniformly in the studies and statistical analysis between patient procedure groups was also provided (Sert et al 2007;Boggess et al 2008b;Ko et al 2008;Nezhat et al 2008a). Baseline patient characteristics were poorly reported in Lambaudie et al (2008) where data was not statistically evaluated between groups. The method of reporting patient characteristics by Lambaudie et al (2008) was less clear since multiple surgical procedures and indications were described overall for the group but these were not described on an individual basis.…”

“…Baseline patient characteristics were poorly reported in Lambaudie et al (2008) where data was not statistically evaluated between groups. The method of reporting patient characteristics by Lambaudie et al (2008) was less clear since multiple surgical procedures and indications were described overall for the group but these were not described on an individual basis. reported matching baseline characteristics but the raw data were not provided.…”

“…Cancer recurrence data were reported in four out of six studies, but followup did not exceed a mean of 29 months. Surgical margins were reported in four studies (Sert et al 2007;Ko et al 2008;Lambaudie et al 2008;Nezhat et al 2008a). Three out of four studies reported whether margins were positive or negative.…”