REVIEW   Free access

Minerva Urologica e Nefrologica 2017 February;69(1):38-55

DOI: 10.23736/S0393-2249.16.02823-X

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Robot assisted lymphadenectomy in urology: pelvic, retroperitoneal and inguinal

Giovannalberto PINI ^{1, 2}, Surena F. MATIN ³, Nazareno SUARDI ^{1, 2}, Mihir DESAI ⁴, Inderbir GILL ⁴, James PORTER ⁵, Robert J. STEIN ⁶, Rene SOTELO ⁴, Franco GABOARDI ¹, Francesco PORPIGLIA ⁷ ✉

¹ Department of Urology, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele-Turro, Milan, Italy; ² Robotic Section of the Young Academic Urologists (YAU) of the European Associastion of Urology (EA U); ³ Department of Urology, Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; ⁴ Institute of Urology, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, CA, USA; ⁵ Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA; 6Glickman Urological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA; ⁷ Department of Urology, San Luigi Hospital, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

Lymph node dissection represents an essential surgical step in the treatment of the most commonly treated urological cancers. The introduction of robotic surgery has lead to the possibility of treating these diseases with a minimally invasive surgical approach, but the surgical principles of open surgery need to be carefully respected in order to achieve comparable oncological results. Therefore, the robotic approach to urological cancers must include a carefully performed lymph node dissection when indicated.
In the current manuscript we reviewed the current indications and extensions of lymph node dissection in prostate, bladder, testicular, upper urinary tract, renal and penile cancers respectively, with a special focus on the state of the art surgical technique for each procedure.

KEY WORDS: Lymph node excision - Robotic surgical procedures - Urology