First report of robotic retromuscular incisional hernia repair with Hugo Ras™ surgical system

Abstract

Treatment of incisional hernia is a rapidly evolving field of surgery, with actual trends being oriented toward retromuscular/preperitoneal mesh placement. The diffusion of robotic surgery is constantly growing in different surgical specialties and is gaining widespread acceptance for abdominal wall reconstruction. Recently, novel robotic platforms have entered into the market. In this study, we present the first transabdominal retromuscular incisional hernia repair performed with the new Hugo RAS™ system (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN, USA). The surgical team had previous robotic experience and completed an official 2-day session running incisional hernia repair on human cadaver lab. Operating room setting and trocar layout were planned. The patient presented a 4 × 4 cm midline incisional hernia and was scheduled for transabdominal retromuscular incisional hernia repair at our Institution. A description of the operative room setup, robotic arm configuration and docking/tilt angles is provided. Docking time, operative time, and console time were 15, 95, and 75 min, respectively. All the surgical steps were completed without critical surgical errors or high-priority alarms. Neither intraoperative complications nor conversion to open surgery was recorded. Postoperative course was uneventful and the patient was discharged on postoperative day 2. The safety and the feasibility of these procedures will require further analysis and larger patients’ sample sizes for procedural standardization and potential integration into minimally invasive abdominal wall reconstruction programs.