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Robotic kidney transplantation: one year after the beginning

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Abstract

Introduction

Kidney transplantation (KT) is the preferred treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). To reduce the morbidity of the open surgery, a robotic-assisted approach has been recently introduced. Our aim is to evaluate surgical and functional results on 17 cases of robotic-assisted kidney transplantation (RAKT) performed at the same institution.

Materials and methods

From July 2015 to June 2016, we performed 17 cases of RAKT from living donors in pre-emptive patients, who underwent laparoscopic nephrectomy. A prospective pilot study was made at Fundació Puigvert (Barcelona), evaluating functional and surgical outcomes. In this series, we considered the functional results, surgical outcomes and complications rates.

Results

Seventeen patients successfully underwent RAKT, in particular surgical console time was 181 min (150–200) with vascular suture time 42 min (32–48), and estimated blood loss <70 ml. Overall ischemia time was 98.9 min (84–140). No patient was converted to open transplantation. No major surgical intra-operative complications were observed. The mean post-operative serum creatinine level 160 μmol/L (81–479). We reported a case of delayed graft function (DGF), one case of graft arterial thrombosis and one case of intraperitoneal hematoma. No anastomosis revision and wounds infections occurred.

Conclusion

RAKT with regional hypothermia appears to be a safe surgical procedure in a properly selected group of patients. The potential advantages of RAKT are related to the quality of the vascular anastomosis, the possible lower complication rate and the shorter recovery of the recipients.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

dVSS® :

Da Vinci surgical system®

DGF:

Delayed graft function

ESRD:

End-stage renal disease

GFR:

Glomerular filtration rate

KT:

Kidney transplantation

PKD:

Polycystic kidney disease

POD:

Post-operative day

RAKT:

Robotic-assisted kidney transplantation

VAS:

Visual analog scale

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Authors’ contribution

A Breda: Project development, data analysis, manuscript writing. A Territo: Data collection, data analysis, manuscript writing. L Gausa: Project development. M Guazzieri: Data collection. A Guttilla: Data analysis, manuscript writing. O Rodriguez-Faba: Data collection. J Caffaratti: Data collection. J Ponce de León: Data collection. L Guirado: Data collection, data analysis. H Villavicencio: Manuscript editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Fundació Puigvert, Autonoma University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Alberto Breda, Angelo Territo, Lluis Gausa, Oscar Rodríguez-Faba, Jorge Caffaratti, Javier Ponce de León, Marco Guazzieri, Andrea Guttilla & Humberto Villavicencio

  2. Department of Nephrology, Fundació Puigvert, Autonoma University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Lluis Guirado & Carme Facundo

  3. Department of Urology, U.L.S.S. 15 “Alta Padovana”, Camposampiero Hospital, Camposampiero, Padua, Italy

    Andrea Guttilla

Authors
  1. Alberto Breda
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  2. Angelo Territo
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  11. Humberto Villavicencio
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Correspondence to Alberto Breda.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Breda, A., Territo, A., Gausa, L. et al. Robotic kidney transplantation: one year after the beginning. World J Urol 35, 1507–1515 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00345-017-2006-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00345-017-2006-8

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