Robotic pancreatic surgery is no substitute for experience and clinical judgment: an initial experience and literature review

Robotic pancreatic surgery offers technical advantages, and has been applied across many surgical specialties. We report an initial experience of 12 distal pancreatic resections for benign tumors from an established pancreatic center with previous general and biliary laparoscopic experience. Of a total of 12 patients, 7 were women; the mean age was 55.5 years, and the lesions included 8 distal intraductal papillary mucinous tumors, 1 insulinoma and in 3 a non-functioning neuroendocrine tumor. All operations were performed in between 90 and 180 minutes, and blood loss and hospital stay were minimal.