Current Evidence on Robotic Liver Resections: Results from the International Robotic and Laparoscopic Liver Resection Study Group

The introduction of robotic surgery began as early as the late 1990s, where Himpens et al. reported the first successful clinical application of a robotic surgical system (nicknamed “Mona”) to perform the world’s first robotic cholecystectomy [1]. Since then, technological improvements in the robotic platform have seen its adoption in a wide range of abdominal surgeries. However, its implementation in liver surgery was encumbered by the anatomic complexity and challenging operative exposure inherent to any liver resection [2]. Over the years, the continual development of advanced energy/bipolar devices, linear staplers and robotic technologies in parallel with the technical understanding of liver anatomy allowed robotic surgery to expand into all forms of liver resection, including major and technical major hepatectomies.