Robotic surgery in children's hospitals: Slight increase and common indications
Topic overview
Multi-institutional analysis of 19 U.S. children's hospitals shows steady growth in robotic surgery adoption from 2010-2019, with expanding surgeon participation in both pediatric surgery and urology. Renal pelvis/ureter procedures dominate urologic cases while foregut surgery shows fastest growth in general surgery applications.
Key takeaways
- Robotic surgery use in pediatric hospitals increased modestly from 2010-2019, with 1.3% quarterly growth in general surgery and 2.0% in urology.
- Biliary/spleen procedures remain most common robotic pediatric surgeries (45.5%), while foregut surgery shows fastest growth (2.1% per quarter).
- Renal pelvis/ureter surgery is the dominant robotic urologic procedure (55.8%) and demonstrates the highest growth rate (2.2% per quarter).
- Number of pediatric surgeons and urologists performing robotic cases grew 7.5-7.8% annually, indicating broader adoption across practitioners.
- Mediastinal/thoracic robotic surgery declined 4.6% per quarter, suggesting selective application based on clinical benefit assessment.
Comments