Relevance of robotic surgery for thymoma: a narrative review

Thymectomy with median sternotomy is the gold standard for thymoma and myasthenia gravis, although minimally invasive procedures such as robot-assisted surgery have recently become more common. However, the superiority of these approaches has not been established, and they are infrequently recommended for localized lesions. The International Thymic Malignancies Interest Group warned that despite the perceived reduction in length of hospital stay and pain, the benefits of these approaches compared to the open approach have not been fully substantiated and that prospective collaborative data collection is critical in defining the value of these techniques. Whether thymectomy is necessary for stage I thymomas in the absence of myasthenia gravis or anti-acetylcholine receptor antibodies is also unclear. This study reviews and discusses the literature on this subject.

A narrative review was conducted using PubMed and Scopus databases. Original research articles comparing robotic to video-assisted thoracic surgery or to open thymectomy for thymomas were included. A comparison of partial resection and total thymectomy (thymothymectomy) for thymomas was also conducted.

Perioperative outcomes such as blood loss, operative duration, complications, and length of hospital stay were better for robot-assisted resection of early-stage thymomas than for open thymoma surgery. It would be premature to consider partial resection as an appropriate treatment option for thymomas.

Robotic thymothymectomy is safe with effective and promising long-term results and oncological and surgical outcomes in patients with thymoma. Robotic thymectomy can become the standard procedure in patients with early-stage thymomas.