Minimally Invasive Pancreas Resections

The technical complexity and associated high complication rate initially hindered the adoption of minimally invasive approaches to pancreatic surgery. Improvements in technology and increasing surgeon experience slowly over came this hesitancy. Over the last decade, successful minimally invasive approaches to essentially all types of pancreatic surgery have been described. The best results are reported from high volume programs with teams dedicated to developing and performing these procedures. We describe the current state of the literature, as well as our techniques for performing these procedures. We caution the reader that acceptable outcomes have been highly associated with proper training, experience, and volumes.