Initial experience of SSI Mantra robot-assisted Transabdominal pre-peritoneal repair of primary ventral hernias.

Introduction: Small and medium sized primary midline ventral hernias are best treated by pre-peritoneal mesh placement. This helps in prevention of complications related to intra-peritoneal mesh placement. The challenges we face while performing laparoscopic transabdominal pre-peritoneal (TAPP) procedure can be overcome by robot-assisted TAPP (rTAPP), and we present our initial experience with the same. We describe the surgical technique used in rTAPP using the relatively new SSI Mantra platform for primary midline ventral hernia repair and evaluate its feasibility and present the outcomes.

Patients and methods: we performed rTAPP for primary midline ventral hernia repair in 10 patients from July 2023 to September 2023. Demographic patient data, hernia characteristics and peri-operative outcomes were measured.

Results: A total of 10 patients underwent elective rTAPP for primary midline ventral hernia, of which 7 were male and 3 were female. The average defect size was 3.2 cm. The average operative time was 113 min. All the patients were discharged within 24-36 h after the procedure. There were no deaths. No post-operative complications such as haematoma, clinically significant seroma, deep or superficial wound infection or recurrence were noted within 30 days.

Conclusion: rTAPP is a technically feasible procedure for the repair of small- and medium-sized midline ventral hernias with defect sizes up to 5 cm. SSI Mantra robotic platform provides the same benefit that other conventional robotic platforms provide at a much lesser cost. Further studies looking at the cost-benefit ratio are required to substantiate the above.