Complications after robotic bladder surgery

Abstract

Especially with bladder surgery, surgeons have to be aware of various potential complications. Their knowledge and skills to manage them are essentially important. Complications compromise patient outcomes and prolong operative time or length of hospital stay. Robotic surgery might have the potential to reduce complications, but bladder surgery is still technically demanding including the need of urinary diversion for radical cystectomy. Complications after robotic bladder surgery may occur at different types of surgery, mainly the radical cystectomy approach. With an increasing experience with robotic procedures such as radical cystectomy and due to the positive impact of minimal invasive techniques on morbidity, robotic technology in bladder surgery is applied to a wider variety of bladder procedures such as partial bladder resection, diverticulectomy and ureteral reimplantation. Some complications are associated with the laparoscopic technique and the robotic equipment such as port positioning, robotic surgical access and malfunctioning of instruments (Chap. 8). But there are other complications, attributable to the specific procedures and seen independently form the approach with open surgery, respectively. Therefore the most common complications on patients undergoing robot assisted bladder surgery will be mentioned and some suggestions for intraoperative solutions and their prevention will be provided.