Intestinal surgery

The GI tract and the peritoneal cavity in which it lives represent both unique challenges and considerable opportunity for robotic assisted surgery. The difficulties that have impeded many surgeons from using laparoscopic techniques, particularly for colon surgery, are in some measure addressed by the additional capabilities of the current robotic laparoscopic systems. This, combined with evidence that laparoscopic colon cancer resection is not inferior to open resection (and may well be superior), is likely to open the doors to large numbers of patients who would prefer to have a minimally invasive operation as opposed to a full incision-based operation (17).