Abstract
Kidney transplantation (KT) is considered one of the cornerstones in the treatment of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) since transplanted patients reach superior survival rates and an improved quality of life compared to hemodialysis, and the open kidney transplantation (OKT) is considered the gold standard technique (Collins et al., Kidney Int Suppl. 5(1):2–7, 2011). The first KT was performed by Dr. Joseph Murray (Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1990) in 1953 and is reputed to be revolutionary in the history of surgery. The laparoscopic KT (LKT) provided advantages regarding wound infections and analgesic therapy, with a subsequent faster recovery and aesthetic results. However, the procedure resulted to be challenging and needing a solid expertise in laparoscopy to reach acceptable operative times and avoid complications as patients with ESRD have a higher risk to develop respiratory acidosis and hypertension due to the slower elimination of carbon dioxide used for pneumoperitoneum. Obvious limitations of laparoscopic suturing techniques did not allow a widespread adoption of laparoscopic surgery for KT. To overcome the limitations of the laparoscopic approach, robot-assisted kidney transplantation (RAKT) was introduced and is showing promising results as a less invasive alternative to the open approach, with the advantages of the robotic technique such as a shorter learning curve and a high dexterity with enhanced visualization of the surgical field. Additionally, many technological novelties have been introduced in RAKT in order to ameliorate the procedure and overcome its limitations.
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Diana, P., Gallioli, A., Decaestecker, K., Menon, M., Breda, A. (2022). Robotic Renal Transplantation. In: Wiklund, P., Mottrie, A., Gundeti, M.S., Patel, V. (eds) Robotic Urologic Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00363-9_43
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