Pure Robotic Surgery for Odontoid Tumor: First Case

Transoral robotic surgery has been used successfully to assist many surgical procedures. Here, we report its first use as pure robotic surgery, applied to excise an odontoid metastatic mass.

A 48-year-old woman was hospitalized due to a lesion consistent with metastasis that extended to the pharyngeal constrictor muscles and that had completely destroyed the odontoid bone. Occipitocervical fixation was performed initially, and transoral surgery took place 5 days later. The da Vinci Surgical System Robot was used to resect the tumor. The patient was discharged with a very good general condition.

This article presents the first pure robotic surgery for odontoid. The increasing number of robot-assisted cases will demonstrate the necessity of this evolution in neurosurgery and should accelerate the process.