Robotic complete mesocolic excision for right colon cancer: Learning curve, training, techniques, approach, platforms, and future perspectives

Abstract

Colon cancer has the fifth highest incidence worldwide and has the sixth highest mortality. Compared with rectal cancer, colon cancer currently has the worst 5-year overall survival for patients with stage II and III disease. Complete mesocolic excision has been developed as a standardized and optimized surgical technique for the excision of colon cancers. This technique has traditionally been performed through an open approach since laparoscopy is generally considered technically challenging. The robotic approach has been slowly implemented for colon cancer, but the newest robotic platforms allow for a safer and optimized approach for right colon cancer. Several robotic approaches have been developed and explored. The expansion of the current robotic platform ecosystem is gradually providing new outputs in the application of the robotic approach to complete mesocolic excision. This review gains an oversight of existing literature on robotic complete mesocolic excision for right colon cancer (learning curve, training, techniques, approach, platforms, and future perspectives).