• Florian Augustin, Johannes Bodner, Herbert Maier, Christoph Schwinghammer, Burkhard Pichler, Paolo Lucciarini, Johann Pratschke, and Thomas Schmid.
• Department of Visceral, Transplant and Thoracic Surgery, Center of Operative Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University, Anichstrasse 35, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. florian.augustin@i-med.ac.at
• Langenbecks Arch Surg. 2013 Aug 1;398(6):895-901.

PurposeMinimally invasive lung lobectomy was introduced in the late 1990s. Since that time, various different approaches have been described. At our institution, two different minimally invasive approaches, a robotic and a conventional thoracoscopic one, were performed for pulmonary lobectomies. This study compares perioperative outcome of the two different techniques in a learning curve setting.MethodsBetween 2001 and 2008, 26 patients underwent lung lobectomy with a robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (RATS) technique. In 2009, the minimally invasive approach was changed to a conventional video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) technique. Perioperative results of the first 26 VATS patients were compared to the results of the robotic group.ResultsThere were significantly more patients with clinical stage >IB in the VATS group than in the robotic-assisted group (23.1 vs. 0 %). Otherwise, demographic data were equal between the groups. Operative time was significantly longer in the robotic group (215 vs. 183 min, p = 0.0362). Median difference between preoperative hemoglobin levels and levels on postoperative day 1 was higher in the RATS group, suggesting a higher blood loss. No difference was found in conversion rate, acute phase protein levels (C-reactive protein), chest drain duration, postoperative morbidity and mortality, and length of hospital stay. Procedural costs were higher for the robotic approach (difference, 770.55 , i.e., 44.4 %).ConclusionsShorter operative times, a lower drop of postoperative hemoglobin levels indicating less blood loss, and lower procedural costs suggest a benefit of the VATS approach over the robotic approach for minimally invasive lung lobectomy.

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