A small study out of the Cleveland Clinic has found no apparent clinical benefit to the use of surgical robotics in abdominal hernia repairs using intraperitoneal mesh.
Laparoscopic intraperitoneal mesh placement is notoriously painful in the early postoperative period, and rates of chronic pain, bulging, with patient dissatisfaction as high as 25%, the researchers noted.
The single-blinded, randomized clinical trial of 75 patients found no significant difference in pain, complications, quality of life or hospital length of stay among who underwent laparoscopic and robotic-assisted surgeries. Robotic assistance also lengthened procedure time by a median of 52 minutes without producing a measurable benefit, researchers found.
“Laparoscopic and robotic ventral hernia repair with intraperitoneal mesh have comparable outcomes,” they concluded. “The increased operative time and proportional cost of the robotic approach are not offset by a measurable clinical benefit.”
The study was published in JAMA Surgery.