Robotic versus laparoscopic hepatectomy for malignancy: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this study was to compare the clinical safety and efficacy of robotic hepatectomy (RH) versus conventional laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH) for malignancy using meta-analysis. A systematic literature search was performed using PubMed, EMBASE, Medline and the Cochrane Library databases up to September 2020 for studies, which limited to comparative articles of RH or LH for malignant tumors. Stata14.0 was performed in the meta-analysis. Six studies with a total of 1093 patients (345 RH and 748 LH) were eligible for inclusion. Operative time, tumor size, open procedure rate and the proportion of right hepatectomy were found to be significantly different between RH and LH in the pooled analysis (P < 0.05). Compared to LH, RH was associated with longer operative time, larger tumor size, lower open procedure rate and more common use for right hepatectomy. On the other hand, there was no difference in the operative time, estimated blood loss (EBL), blood transfusion rate, hospital stay, R0 resection rate, complications, resection margin, left lateral sectionectomy and left hepatectomy (P > 0.05). For malignant tumors that require hepatectomy, robotic approaches have demonstrated similar safety and feasibility to laparoscopy, with lower open procedure rate, were suitable for larger tumor size, and have a high right hepatectomy utilization rate. These results still need to be confirmed by multicenter, high-quality randomized controlled studies.