Role of robotic gastrectomy in modern gastric surgery

Robot assisted gastrectomy entails hope for overcoming laparoscopy limitations in the field of gastric surgery. The robotic system has many inherited advantages in means of angulations, ergonomics, vision and augmented imaging yet his penetrance has been slow. The aim of our review is to highlight the potential benefits and down faults of the robotic approach in gastrectomy and review the current literature in segregated aspects and overall clinical outcome. As the robotic gastrectomy is still at his preliminary stages, we offer some future perspective and our own thoughts on the clinical data gathered so far. By our literature review we may assume that robotic non-inferiority has already been accepted and two major down faults arise from the longer operative time and higher costs. Evidence is accumulating on better lymphadenectomy, reduced blood loss as a surrogate for finer dissection, shorter learning curve and future role in more advance cancers. Future technological advances and clinical experience entails further short and long-term outcome improvement/advantages.