[Robotic Pancreatic Surgery]

Pancreatic surgery is one of the most challenging fields in visceral surgery. However, laparoscopic pancreatic surgery has not become the standard of care as yet, especially because of the very demanding reconstruction of anastomoses in pancreaticoduodenectomy. Robotic surgery has been a recent advance in laparoscopy. Its benefits are a better 3D view, a greater degree of freedom corresponding to that of the human hand, and tremor elimination. These factors greatly facilitate the intracorporeal suturing and knot-tying, which offers a technical advantage in performing pancreaticojejunostomy as compared with laparoscopic resections. However, only a few centres are offering this procedure for pancreatic resections. Retrospective analyses show that robotic pancreatic resections are safe und oncologically adequate if performed by experienced surgeons. Prospective, randomised trials comparing laparoscopic and robotic pancreatic resection techniques are not available to date.