A Decade of Experience with More than 530 Robotic Liver Resections for Liver Tumors

Since his arrival in Florida at the later part of 2016, Dr. Sucandy has revolutionized the robotic hepatopancreatobiliary program in his hospital to now what is known as the leading liver surgery center in the United States. Immediately he started a formal robotic liver surgery program while taking a major part in further developing robotic pancreatic program. Dr Sucandy had trained in robotic surgery during his previous work at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center under the guidance of Professor Herbert Zeh and his associates. Since then,  the robotic liver surgery program in Florida flourished with a steady increase in the number of liver operations and patient referrals every year.  Today, the majority of patients who live in Southwest Florida are referred to Dr. Sucandy for their liver surgeries. Nearly 20% of patients also come from Out of State such as Texas, Georgia, Alabama, etc based on the practice reputations.

Last year, a research staff Maria Christo who is working with Dr. Sucandy queried the robotic liver surgery database to examine the clinical outcomes of robotic liver resections since 2013. While having completed more than 1000 of liver surgeries, 530 of those patients received robotic liver resections for treatment of their liver tumors. These included benign, premalignant, and malignant diseases (secondary or primary liver cancers). The results of this study were presented at the Americas Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery Association (AHPBA) Meeting in Miami and ultimately published in Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery (JOGS).

Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery is one of the leading high-impact journal in gastrointestinal including hepatobiliary surgery. This new ‘benchmark’ study is important to set expectations and parameters of how minimally invasive liver surgery should look like or result to. The outcomes were better than those reported by traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopic approach from prior authors. The data were classified based on the cirrhotic status of the liver, learning curve, and operative technical difficulty level as determined by Iwate Japanese classification system. Overall survivals to reflect oncological long-term outcomes were also discussed in this paper.  This publication has raised the bar in evaluating surgical outcomes for patients suffering from liver cancers [1].

Earlier this month, Society of Surgery for Alimentary Tract (SSAT) had decided to discuss this paper at their International Journal Club. This was such an honor  and achievement in academic surgery.  As the senior author, Dr Sucandy was invited to be present as the liver surgery expert to give his perspective.  Four prominent papers were selected for this International Journal Club, attended by more than 500 surgeons from various countries.  This is such an important educational activity sponsored by a surgical society to foster education for all surgeons.