Robotic colorectal surgery for laparoscopic surgeons with limited experience: preliminary experiences for 40 consecutive cases at a single medical center

BACKGROUND: We present our preliminary experiences and results for forty consecutive patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) who were treated by robotic surgery. METHODS: Between May 2013 and September 2014, forty patients with CRC received robotic surgery at a single institution. The clinicopathological features and perioperative parameters were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: Of the 40 patients with CRC, 33 (82.5 %) had rectal cancers, and 22 (66.7 %) of those 33 patients also underwent pre-operative concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT). The two most frequent surgical procedures were intersphincteric resection (ISR) with coloanal anastomosis (16/40, 40 %) and lower anterior resection (LAR) (15/40, 37.5 %). Among all 40 patients, the median time to first flatus passage was 2 days. The median time to soft diet resumption was 4 days. The median post operative hospital stay was 7 days. The overall complication rate was 20 % (8/40 patients), of which most of the complications were mild, although one laparotomy was required to check for post-operative bleeding. There was no 30-day hospital mortality, nor conversion to open surgery and laparoscopy. CONCLUSION: We present our preliminary experiences of robotic colorectal surgery and demonstrate that robotic colorectal surgery is a safe and feasible surgery even when conducted by laparoscopic surgeons with limited experience.