• Fabio Rondelli, Ruben Balzarotti, Fabio Villa, Adriano Guerra, Nicola Avenia, Enrico Mariani, and Walter Bugiantella.
• "Bellinzona e Valli" Regional Hospital, 6500 Bellinzona, Switzerland; University of Perugia, Department of Surgical and Biomedical Sciences, Via G. Dottori, 06100 Perugia, Italy. Electronic address: rondellif@hotmail.com.
• Int J Surg. 2015 Jun 1; 18: 75-82.

AimThe use of robotic technology procedures has proved to be safe and effective, arising as a helpful alternative to standard laparoscopic surgery in a variety of colorectal procedures. However, the role of robotic assistance in laparoscopic right colectomy is still not demonstrated.MethodsA systematic review of the literature was carried out performing an unrestricted search in MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and Google Scholar up to 30th August 2014. Reference lists of retrieved articles and review articles were manually searched for other relevant studies. We meta-analyzed the currently available data regarding the incidence of anastomotic leakage, operative time, intra-operative blood loss, conversion rate, retrieved lymphnodes, post-operative hemorrhage, intra-abdominal abscess, time to 1st flatus, post-operative ileus, wound infection, incisional hernia, not-surgical complications, total complications, hospital stay, post-operative mortality, surgery-related costs and total costs, in conventional laparoscopic right colectomy (LRC) compared to robot-assisted laparoscopic right colectomy (RRC).ResultsOverall 8 studies were included, thus resulting in 616 patients. The meta-analysis showed that the RRC decreases the intra-operative blood loss and the time to the 1st flatus, if compared to the LRC. On the other hand, the robotic assistance increases the operative time and the surgery-related costs. No statistically significant differences were found about the other post-operative outcomes.ConclusionRRC may ensure limited improvements in post-operative outcome, thus increasing procedural costs and without a proved enhanced oncological accuracy to date, if compared to the LRC.Copyright © 2015 IJS Publishing Group Limited. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

26 keywords...

hide…