抄録
Recently, robotic technology in the surgical field has become more widespread. However, in the field of head and neck surgery, robotic surgery has been limited because of spatial and technical limitations. The technical and optical advantages of a new robotic instrument, the da Vinci S system, enable us to perform robotic surgery in head and neck field. In this article, I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of robotic surgery using the da Vinci S system for head and neck surgery.
Robotic thyroid surgery using the robotic approach has been developed mainly in Korea. In Korea, robotic thyroidectomy using a gasless, transaxillary approach is a common technique. Many papers about robotic thyroidectomy using the da Vinci S system have been published in which the technical advantages of the robotic approarch in the cosmetic results have been discussed4)-6).
Another feasible approach in the head and neck region is the transoral robotic surgery (TORS) for mesopharyngeal and midline skull base tumors. This technique has been developed mainly by Weinstein and his colleagues. This new robotic surgical instrument, the da Vinci S system, is compact in comparison with the previous types. Therefore, robotic surgery via the oral cavity has become possible. Weinstein et al. mentioned in their paper that multiple institutions have shown that transoral robotic surgery programs can be successfully established yielding excellent clinical outcomes7).
