Robotic surgery in small children: is there room for this?

Abstract

Some pediatric surgeons may be reluctant to use robotic surgery for small patients because the only available surgical robot might seem too large for smaller patients. However, we have found this concern invalid. We have been successful in a wide variety of minimally invasive surgery procedures using robotics for general surgery applications in small children. However, several technical issues must be considered in order to optimize this technology for these children. In this article, we present a retrospective review of 45 patients of less than 10 kg who underwent robotic surgery and discuss the adjustments we made in order to adapt this technology to our small patients in a wide variety of general surgical procedures.