Robot-Assisted Resection of Intestinal Duplication in Children

Intestinal duplication is the most common type of alimentary tract duplications in childhood. Laparoscopic-assisted surgery has become the main surgical procedure, but robot-assisted resection has rarely been reported; the aim of this study was to retrospectively present our experience with robot-assisted intestinal duplication excision using the Da Vinci Xi surgical system and discuss the technical points. In total, 49 patients who were diagnosed with intestinal duplication and underwent surgery from April 2020 to February 2022 in the Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, were retrospectively analyzed. The data were collected including the clinical information of the patients, operative details, and postoperative outcomes. Among these 49 patients, a total of 15 underwent robot-assisted surgery and 34 underwent laparoscopic-assisted surgery. For the robot-assisted surgery group, all the cysts were peeled off by complete endoscope, the integrity of the intestine was preserved and intestinal resection and anastomosis were not required. The operation time of 80 minutes for the robot-assisted group was not significantly longer than the 90 minutes for the laparoscopic-assisted surgery group(P > .05), but the mean time to take the liquid diet after surgery and the average length of postoperative hospital stay were significantly shorter (P < .05). Robot-assisted resection of intestinal duplication is safe and feasible and the refinement of the Da Vinci Xi surgical system was much better than that of the conventional laparoscopic equipment, resulting in significantly improved intraoperative and postoperative outcomes.