Oct. 04, 2024
The mainstay of treatment for kidney cancer is surgery to remove the cancerous tumor. In many cases, surgeons can remove only the tumor and save most of the healthy portion of the kidney with a procedure called partial nephrectomy.
Twenty years ago, a team at Mayo Clinic was among the first in the world to pioneer the use of the da Vinci surgical robot for minimally invasive partial nephrectomy. Almost two decades later, Abhinav Khanna, M.D., M.P.H., a urologic oncologist and robotic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, built upon this legacy of innovation. In the fall of 2023, Dr. Khanna and his team performed Mayo Clinic's first single-port robot-assisted partial nephrectomy through an anterior retroperitoneal approach.
First introduced in 2018, the single-port robotic platform was rapidly adopted by Mayo Clinic surgeons, particularly in prostate cancer surgery. Unlike traditional robotic surgery that involves 5 to 6 small incisions, the single-port robotic platform allows for just a single small incision through which all the robotic arms can be inserted.
"Perhaps most intriguing, with single-port surgery, patients can be positioned supine in more natural positions, reducing the risk of musculoskeletal injury that can sometimes be seen with traditional robotic kidney surgery performed in a flank position."
Reducing the number of incisions has been associated with decreased pain and more rapid recovery time from surgery. For these reasons, the single-port approach has become increasingly common in robotic prostate cancer surgery. However, the single-port robot has not yet been widely used for kidney cancer surgery.
According to Dr. Khanna, there are unique advantages of single-port approaches to kidney surgery beyond simply the number and size of incisions. For instance, the single-port robotic technique facilitates a retroperitoneal approach to kidney surgery, which allows surgeons to avoid potential intra-abdominal scarring from prior surgeries and steer clear of most major abdominal organs.
"Perhaps most intriguing, with single-port surgery, patients can be positioned supine in more natural positions, reducing the risk of musculoskeletal injury that can sometimes be seen with traditional robotic kidney surgery performed in a flank position," says Dr. Khanna. This innovative approach to minimally invasive kidney surgery helps streamline patient recovery following surgery and, in some cases, even helps facilitate same-day discharge following surgery.
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Refer a patient to Mayo Clinic.