Annual Report and Clinical – Academic Highlights of 2024
Robotic Liver Surgery Program Under the Guidance of Dr. Iswanto Sucandy MD
Tampa, Florida
In the year of 2024. Dr Sucandy and his team had completed more than 150 liver operations with 90% of them were performed using robotic surgical techniques. The annual number of liver surgery is 2-3x higher than other hepatopancreatobiliary cases within the Digestive Surgery Department. About 10% of patients had to undergo an open liver resection due to anticipated technical difficulty with vascular invasions requiring major vascular reconstruction. These include portal vein and inferior vena cava resection with reconstructions, which is not often performed in smaller hospitals. Despite of operative technical complexity and major comorbidities, rate of postoperative complications was less than 8%, with the rate of 60-day mortality below 1%. These clinical outcomes were significantly better when compared to those reported by the American College of Surgeons NSQIP (National Surgical Quality Improvement Project). Less postoperative complications mean earlier to adjuvant chemotherapy for those patients with biliary cancers and colorectal liver metastasis. This in turn was shown to improve overall survival and lengthen the disease-free survival.
Since late 2016, Dr Sucandy and his team had performed approximately 1000 liver surgeries, 650 of which were robotic liver resections. The majority of patients come from Southwestern region of Florida with 15% of patients come from out of state. This high number of cases and clinical experience in robotic liver surgery is not only the largest in Florida but also the largest in the United States. Dr Sucandy and his team had completed more robotic liver resections than any large Cancer Centers or University Hospitals in America. The large amount of clinical data strongly supports an outcome research program under the leadership of Dr Sucandy with active contributions to many national and international scientific societies.
As a result of high clinical activities and major academic contributions in the field of robotic liver surgery, Dr Sucandy was routinely invited to be a panel chair and a panel member at many Consensus Conferences. This is a very important meeting where surgical Guidelines are written to shape the future of practice in liver surgery. In 2024, Dr Sucandy was the Panel Chair for IEGUMILS (Internationally validated European Guidelines for Minimally Invasive Liver Surgery) Consensus Conference in Brescia Italy. This consensus conference was led by Professor Abu Hilal, a pioneer in laparoscopic liver and pancreas surgery. In December 2024, Dr Sucandy was also invited to be a panel member at The First Perihilar Cholangiocarcinoma Consensus Conference held in Milan Italy under the direction of Professor Luca Aldrighetti from San Rafaele Hospital and Professor Alain Clavien from University of Zurich. In this very prestigious event only for renown experts in bile duct cancer treatment, Dr Sucandy worked with Professor Ebata and Professor Nagino from Nagoya University-Japan, experts in open klatskin tumor resections, among other world pioneers.
In addition to invited presentations/lectures in Seoul Korea during International Society of Liver Surgeons (ISLS) meeting and in Kyoto Japan during the International Laparoscopic Liver Society Single-topic symposium in October 2024, Dr Sucandy also made 6 trips to Europe (Turin, Roma, Milan, Belgium, Brescia, Netherland) and Southeast Asia (Jakarta) for similar reasons in the year of 2024. Dr Sucandy performed the first robotic liver surgery in Indonesia at the end of October 2024 at Ciptomangunkusomo Hospital in Jakarta Indonesia using EDGE medical Chinese robotic system. Dr Sucandy also visited the Hinotori robotic surgery team in Kobe Japan toward the end of 2024 by a special expert invitation.
