Comparison of short- and long-term outcomes of an early experience with robotic and laparoscopic-assisted resection for rectal cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Robotic surgery is increasingly used for rectal cancer. We compared the short- and long-term outcomes between robotic- and laparoscopic-assisted resection for rectal cancer. METHODOLOGY: A retrospective chart review was performed between 2006 and 2010. RESULTS: Seventeen robotic and 61 laparoscopic surgeries were performed consecutively. Median follow-up time was 58.2 months. No operation was converted to open surgery. No difference was observed between the groups for types of operations, diverting ileostomy rate, operation time, blood loss, and postoperative hospital stay, tumor diameter, distal margin, circumferential margin, tumor stage, differentiation, lymphovascular, or perineural invasion. However, the number of harvested lymph nodes was higher in the robot than that in the laparoscopy group (p = 0.017). Overall morbidity and reoperation rates were similar between the groups. The 5-yr overall and disease-free survival rates of all patients were 82.5% and 81.3%, respectively. The 5-yr overall and disease-free survival rates of the robotic and the laparoscopy groups were 94.1% and 79.7% (p = 0.241), and 94.1% and 77.9% (p = 0.159), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Robot-assisted resection for rectal cancer resulted in harvesting more lymph nodes without increasing morbidity and showed a comparable survival rate, compared with those of laparoscopy.