Robotic Liver Surgery for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Minimally invasive liver surgery has demonstrated several benefits over the classical open approach, including lower estimated blood loss and postoperative pain, shorter length of hospital stay, and improved cosmesis [1–4]. Prior to the advent of robotic surgery, laparoscopy was considered the standard of care when adopting minimally invasive approaches for liver resection [5–8]. Initial concerns about oncological outcomes proved to be unfounded as laparoscopic liver surgery has been proven to provide equivalent survival compared to traditional open surgery [9–12]. The Louisville and Morioka Consensus Conferences in 2008 and 2014, respectively, and the Southampton Guidelines Meeting in 2017 further established the minimally invasive approach as the gold standard in specific liver resection procedures [8, 13, 14].