Comparison of Short-term Outcomes Between Thoracoscopic and Robot-assisted Minimally Invasive Esophagectomy for Esophageal Cancer: A Propensity Score-matched Analysis

BACKGROUND/AIM: Surgical approaches to esophageal cancer worldwide are shifting from open procedures to thoracoscopic esophagectomy (TE) and robot-assisted esophagectomy (RAE). However, whether RAE is superior to conventional TE has not been established. We compared short-term outcomes and oncological safety between TE and RAE. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed 313 consecutive patients with esophageal cancer who were treated by minimally invasive TE (n=202) or RAE (n=111), then compared the surgical outcomes using propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis. RESULTS: <0.001 and 0.002, respectively). CONCLUSION: Although the surgical duration of RAE was longer, less blood was lost and the postoperative inflammatory response was reduced, while the number of dissected lymph nodes and postoperative complication rates were comparable. These findings suggest that RAE is a feasible and potentially less invasive surgical approach for esophageal cancer.