A current review of robotic colorectal surgery

Colorectal surgery has seen significant advancements in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) over the last several decades which has resulted improved perioperative outcomes when compared to traditional open approaches. With development and utilization of robotic technologies, there have been several studies comparing the efficacy and safety of robotics to traditional laparoscopy. Given the current available data, it appears that robotic surgery offers equivalent perioperative results with comparable short term and long-term oncologic outcomes when compared to laparoscopy. These same studies, however, do consistently demonstrate that robotic surgery results in decreased rates of conversion to an operation, but at an increased overall cost to the patient and healthcare system. This review aims to review the history of advances in MIS in colorectal surgery, review the available data in robotic resections and discuss the known limitations to full adoption of robotic surgery.