Robotics in pediatric urology

Abstract

Robotic surgery has been slow to be fully accepted in the world of pediatric urology largely because of its initial application directed towards adult use and because of the inherent high cost associated with it. However, as previously shown, it has now become the gold standard for adolescent pyeloplasty in The United States. As the adoption of robotic surgery in children has become more widespread, its use has been applied to a broader spectrum of procedures with similar success rates to standard laparoscopy. These procedures include nephrectomy, heminephrectomy, ureteral reimplantation, and ureteroureterostomy. However, it has also shown feasibility and comparable success when compared to open surgery in procedures that were previously deemed too complex to be done by standard laparoscopy. For example, bladder neck reconstruction with Mitrofanoff and Malone procedure as well as bladder augmentation. This review objective is to provide an overview of robotic surgery in pediatric urology, with a focus on the more common cases such as pyeloplasty and reimplantation as well as more complex bladder reconstruction procedures.