Open vs. minimally invasive cost of distal pancreatectomy

Today, robotic system has become a new technological trend in surgery and its potential advantages such as excellent ergonomics, tremor elimination, 3-dimensional view and improved instruments movements have been well described. Even if in the literature there are only few studies addressing the benefits on distal pancreatectomies and none of them is a randomized clinical trial, it is clear that in this field, robotic approach is both feasible and safe as well as the laparoscopic and traditional open approach (1-4). On the other hand, there is a lack of high-level economic studies comparing these techniques.