Robot-assisted laparoscopic nephroureterectomy for upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UT-UC)

Upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UT-UC), including tumors evolving from the renal pelvis and ureter, accounts for around 5% of all UCs and 10% of all renal tumor cases. In Taiwan, the incidence of UT-UC is higher than the western countries especially in the female and patients at renal replacement therapy. The standard care of UT-UC is nephroureterectomy with bladder cuff excision. In the past decades, minimally invasive surgery is proved to achieve comparable oncological results as conventional open procedure. Though laparoscopic nephroureterectomy with bladder cuff excision including pure laparoscopic or hand-assisted technique have been very common practice in Taiwan, several institutes have the early experience of robot-assisted nephroureterectomy which is believed to provide 3-D visualization with magnification, better surgical exposure, and safer watertight suture of the cystostomy. In this review, we review the published reports of robot-assisted nephroureterectomy with bladder cuff excision.