Comparison of Laparoscopic Versus Robot-Assisted Surgery for Rectal Cancers The COLRAR Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective:To evaluate whether robotic for middle or low rectal cancer produces an improvement in surgical outcomes compared with laparoscopic surgery in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Background:There is a lack of proven clinical benefit of robotic total mesorectal excision (TME) compared with a laparoscopic approach in the setting of multicenter RCTs. Methods:Between July 2011 and February 2016, patients diagnosed with an adenocarcinoma located Results:The RCT was terminated prematurely because of poor accrual of data. In all, 295 patients were assigned randomly to a robot-assisted TME group (151 in R-TME) or a laparoscopy-assisted TME group (144 in L-TME). The rates of complete TME were not different between groups (80.7% in R-TME, 77.1% in L-TME). Pathologic outcomes including the circumferential resection margin and the numbers of retrieved lymph nodes were not different between groups. In a subanalysis, the positive circumferential resection margin rate was lower in the R-TME group (0% vs 6.1% for L-TME; P=0.031). Among the recovery parameters, the length of opioid use was shorter in the R-TME group (P=0.028). There was no difference in the postoperative complication rate between the groups (12.0% for R-TME vs 8.3% for L-TME). Conclusions:In patients with middle or low rectal cancer, robotic-assisted surgery did not significantly improve the TME quality compared with conventional laparoscopic surgery (ClinicalTrial.gov ID: NCT01042743).

Automated summary

This study evaluated the effectiveness of robotic surgery compared with laparoscopic surgery in patients with middle or low rectal cancer, and found that there was no significant improvement in TME quality with the use of robotic technology.