A Decade of Robotic Liver Resection: Study Highlights Perioperative and Survival Outcomes

A healthcare professional in PPE holds a glowing, holographic liver model.

A new Journal of Robotic Surgery study from AdventHealth Tampa’s Digestive Health Institute examines a decade of experience using robotic liver resection to treat primary and metastatic hepatobiliary cancers. The retrospective study included 305 patients treated between 2013 and 2025 for hepatocellular carcinoma, intrahepatic and perihilar cholangiocarcinoma, colorectal liver metastases, and neuroendocrine tumor metastases.

These findings add to the growing body of evidence evaluating whether robotic techniques can be applied across a range of liver tumors and surgical complexities while maintaining sound perioperative and oncologic outcomes. Overall postoperative morbidity was 33.1%, with major complications occurring in 12.8% of patients. Ninety-day mortality was 3.6%. As expected, outcomes varied by disease type and operative complexity. Patients with perihilar cholangiocarcinoma experienced the highest rates of postoperative morbidity and major complications, as well as the highest R1 resection rate, underscoring the technical demands of treating this disease.

Three-year overall survival ranged from 47.9% for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma to 90% for neuroendocrine tumor metastases, with disease-specific outcomes for hepatocellular carcinoma, perihilar cholangiocarcinoma, and colorectal liver metastases falling between those figures. The authors conclude that these results support continued expansion of robotic liver resection, while emphasizing the need for larger prospective, multicenter studies to further evaluate its role in hepatobiliary cancer care. The AdventHealth clinicians included in the work were Giuseppe Esposito, Mira Khaldoun Eid, Sharona B Ross, Garnet Vanterpool Jr, Kristina Milivojev Covilo, and Iswanto Sucandy.

View the full article in the Journal of Robotic Surgery.

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