When Is Robotic Surgery an Option?
- Robotic surgery is a type of minimally invasive surgery. Advantages include less hospital time, less post-surgical pain, and faster recovery.
- Robotic surgery is an option when there is less cancer present.
- Chemotherapy before surgery, called neoadjuvant chemotherapy, may help shrink the cancer, making robotic surgery more feasible.
incisions. For ovarian cancer, doctors make about five incisions, each less than a centimeter in size, around the belly button rather than a large open incision down the abdomen midline.
“I very much value using robotic surgery whenever possible,” says Dr. Jessica Thomes Pepin, gynecologic oncologist with Minnesota Oncology. Minimally invasive surgery can minimize blood loss and recovery time and help improve outcomes.
Read MoreGiving a patient chemotherapy upfront, before surgerywhich is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy also may allow doctors more surgical options. In some of those cases, "one of the reasons we can feel that patient outcomes won't be compromised using robotic surgery is that a lot of the carcinomatosis treated in effect by chemotherapy has largely melted away," Thomes Pepin says.
After three or four cycles of chemo it's possible that for some patients, their tumor may have shrunk to such a degree that at the time of interval debulking surgery or interval surgical proceedings minimally invasive surgery may be a viable approach. Of course this is only appropriate if a surgeon is comfortable with the robotic technology.
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