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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jan 15, 2016; 8(1): 8-17
Published online Jan 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i1.8
Robot-assisted surgery for gastric cancer
Livia Procopiuc, Ştefan Tudor, Mircea Mănuc, Mircea Diculescu, Cătălin Vasilescu
Livia Procopiuc, Mircea Mănuc, Mircea Diculescu, Cătălin Vasilescu, “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 020022 Bucharest, Romania
Ştefan Tudor, Cătălin Vasilescu, Department of General Surgery and Liver Transplantation, Fundeni Clinical Institute, 022238 Bucharest, Romania
Mircea Mănuc, Mircea Diculescu, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Fundeni Clinical Institute, 022238 Bucharest, Romania
Author contributions: Procopiuc L, Tudor Ş, Mănuc M, Diculescu M and Vasilescu C wrote the manuscript; Vasilescu C critically revised and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by The European Social Fund, through the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013, No. POSDRU/159/1.5/S/138907; and “Excellence in scientific interdisciplinary research, doctoral and postdoctoral, in the economic, social and medical fields -EXCELIS”, coordinator The Bucharest University of Economic Studies.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no competing financial interests or conflict of interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Cătălin Vasilescu, Associate Professor, Department of General Surgery and Liver Transplantation, Fundeni Clinical Institute, 258 Fundeni Street, 022238 Bucharest, Romania. catvasilescu@gmail.com
Telephone: +40-722-207260 Fax: +40-213-1888811
Received: April 27, 2015
Peer-review started: May 1, 2015
First decision: October 21, 2015
Revised: November 25, 2015
Accepted: December 8, 2015
Article in press: December 11, 2015
Published online: January 15, 2016
Processing time: 262 Days and 4.5 Hours
Abstract

Minimally invasive surgery for gastric cancer is a relatively new research field, with convincing results mostly stemming from Asian countries. The use of the robotic surgery platform, thus far assessed as a safe procedure, which is also easier to learn, sets the background for a wider spread of minimally invasive technique in the treatment of gastric cancer. This review will cover the literature published so far, analyzing the pros and cons of robotic surgery and highlighting the remaining study questions.

Keywords: Gastric cancer survival; Robotic surgery; Gastric cancer surgery; Lymphadenectomy; Minimally invasive surgery

Core tip: An important problem remains regarding the selection of the appropriate technique for a given gastric cancer case. Encouraging results are being published using the robotic technique, but the lack of homogenous study groups in terms of staging, comorbidities and adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies makes it hard to establish a clear indication for the robotic gastrectomy in gastric cancer. Carefully weighing the treatment options is especially important since there are more and more groups publishing acceptable results with the robotic technique.